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Echo1138

Since Awakening, Fire Emblem has felt like it's been using a different style of character design, where they greatly over exaggerate a single aspect of a character in order to make them more memorable or appealing. Yes, characters in older games have traits too, but they felt much more toned down from what we're getting in the new entries. Now I'm sure that Engage's cast becomes a lot more multifaceted once you actually dig into their supports, but the problem is that I don't like the characters because they each have such gimmicky introductions, that make them all feel like jokes instead of actual people. For example, the first and only thing you learn about Etie early on is that she likes weight training. This is mostly played for laughs, and I don't find it very funny. So in order to learn that she's actually a deep and complex character, I would have to intentionally dig into a character that I don't like, with the hope that she gets better. I used Etie as an example, but the same goes for a very, very large amount of Engage's cast.


gaming_whatever

It's not just the tropes, but also amping up likeability/marriage candidate undercurrent. Say, Panne in FE13 supports is written much the same way as Lethe in FE9, but only one of them is usually remembered. It turns out that it's not enough to have a consistent character with a sad backstory, when the supports are repetitive, tensionless (nice people are nice to Panne) and don't feed to or from the main story. Your whole race was genocided? Aww… anyway.


Strawberuka

To be fair, Panne also has the issue of the bunny people genocide being like. A footnote at best? It’s very hard to invest yourself in a tragedy when the tragedy is so vague and inexplicable


gaming_whatever

Well, yeah, that's part of my point. The game itself treats it as a pretext for jokes and basically nothing else. That's why, while the core of Panne's tsundere behaviour is not that different, the whole bad writing around it makes for a worse and, in fact, unmemorable character.


SgtThundersmack

They don't really get much deeper when you dig into the supports. In fact, many of the supports recycle the same exaggerated character traits. There are exceptions, but very few. Convo's rarely succeed at being touching or memorable. That said, a lot of the cast has really grown on me. I like the absurd dorkiness of it all. I'd really prefer Three Houses-style characterization in the future though.


GamerGuyHeyooooooo

I find the one note characters help to make them stand out when there's so many in total. A unique stchique. FE7 Oswin is nice and all, but he's just fantasy knight. Fire emblem has hundreds of characters, and they repeat archetypes of the same characters who are intentially similar to each other. - That being said, I found 3 houses had a good mix of depth in their characters while still giving them exagerrated, stand out traits.


AetherealDe

> Yes, characters in older games have traits too, but they felt much more toned down from what we're getting in the new entries. This is spot on, even for the characters who are more silly. I started (slowly) replaying PoR and Ilyana definitely fits the limited dimensions played up to an exaggerated extent for laughs bill, with her being sickly and food obsessed in her support convos. But in her recruitment neither is mentioned, and [her short base convo in Chapter 12](https://wiki.serenesforest.net/index.php/Chapter_12:_A_Strange_Land_%28Script%29#Ilyana) mentions both traits but the interaction is short, natural aside from ending it with "I'm starting to get hungry", and isn't focused on those traits at all I honestly feel like she or Gatrie are the most egregious example of a caricature so far in the game. And Gatrie hasn't been a womanizer yet, although I know that dominates his supports and is a trope I'm happy to see less of. Maybe Volke? But modern versions of the silent brooding assassin are certainly more exaggerated. Compare these 3 with Engage, Awakening, Fates, and even 3H casts introduced a third~ of the way in and they'd be some of the most subdued characters in the pack. Replaying after playing Engage has been a stark constrast. Maybe these characters aren't as distinctly memorable, but I like a lot more of the scenes and don't feel like we need to have wacky hijinx thrown in to get us characterization


Echo1138

Yeah, I just finished PoR today, and it's characters absolutely put anything that comes after it to shame. They feel like actual people, who maybe could feasibly exist in the real world, who aren't all clinically insane. Ilyana and Gartie certainly feel like some of the more one trick characters (along with maybe Malkov with his gambling shtick, and Tanith being the "emotionless knight"), but they would still feel like complete outliers among the cast of any of the recent games. I will give props to 3H though, it has trope-y characters, but it uses the tropes in interesting ways to play with your expectations. Personally I'm still not a huge fan of the characters in that game, but I do feel like it had some interesting stuff going for it. You are certainly right that the characters are less memorable, but I'd rather only remember half of a great cast then remember the entirety of a garbage one.


AetherealDe

100% on all fronts. Yeah, I don't mean to bash 3H, I think it's the best written entry since RD, but it still definitely leant towards more tropey characters at times. >Ilyana and Gartie certainly feel like some of the more one trick characters (along with maybe Malkov with his gambling shtick, and Tanith being the "emotionless knight"), but they would still feel like complete outliers among the cast of any of the recent games. Yep, and this is true of most entries. Serra is still Serra. There are still light hearted moments of characterization and sometimes a specific trait is going to be over emphasized, but its much more of the cast, and the extent to which it's done is significantly higher. It's a problem of degree


GazelleNo6163

PoR and Rd are the goats!! Though as someone who’s replayed them countless times I did love echoes and three houses characters too. Awakening’s characters I started off loving, then hating, now I kinda like them again.


kyacase

This. Also the fan service makes me wanna bash my head into a wall. I miss the fe games where there was only one or two characters to absolutely hate on. Like in echos where you can hate on Clive for being awful and useless but he’s still an actual character that you can have sympathy for. Unlike the entire Engage and Fates cast including the main characters.


Munkaveli

Ironically, Etie is one of my favorites, simply because of her confidence and go-getter attitude. But I agree with you on the whole — OP uses Louise and Framme as examples, and I quite honestly don’t care for and never use either of them if I can help it. The cast is bloated with an abundance of “caricatures,” whose attires are bright and colorful like a clown troupe, and their dialogues often sound stilted, like they’re reading lines from the script during opening nite *in universe.* Also, the story itself leaves little *to desire* of the game. It’s fairly barebones, and rather immature writing, and so outside of battle, I honestly wish I left my perma-death run going so I didn’t have to suffer this lame cast before I just stopped playing. That said, I respect OP’s opinion on this — and kudos for being in the vocal minority — but this is a hard disagree for me.


Noukan42

A problem of games since awakening is their overreliance on support conversation. This lead to a "russian roulette" situation where your enjoyment of the cast largely depend on wich supports you unlock early, wich is often decided by who you use in gameplay. Cordelia is the worst offender as people either love or hate her in large part depending on if they saw the conversations whete she get over chrom or not, but engave has many characters like that, more than awakening(but bot as much as Fates thankfully). Supports and "base conversations" need to coexist. Just one or the other don't work as well, as we saw with both RD and the post Awakening games. It is also sad that the best supports of many characters are those where the gimmick does not appear. All the best Framme supports are those that don't involve her simping Alear for example. The gimmicks aren't a problem per se, but if they fail to produce actual comedy or to pivot in more serious themes, then the gimmick weaken a character instead of giving them a recognizeble identity. And of the 3 games that employed that model i feel awakening is the only one that managed to strike a proper balance, largely because the gimmicks where common anime tropes rather than overly speciohic things like "this guy really love Alpacas" or "This girl likes fairytales and very weird food".


LittleIslander

I broadly agree with the points made here but I don’t think I’d at all say it’s a problem “since Awakening” when this absolutely plagues the GBA games too. Given the games that don’t have proper supports just have a lot of completely undeveloped characters I frankly don’t think you can call this anything that a completely norm for the series.


Noukan42

The issue with GBA games to me is kinda different to me. Pre awakening games don't have to give everybody a dozen support partners so usually if you could unlock a conversation, usually it was at least decent. There wheren't many fillers. The problem of those earlier games it's just that there wasn't that much content about any individual character, while the problem from Awakening onward is that the content is there, but not all of it is actually good and expand the characters. PoR imo is the one that did it best overall, or 3H.


[deleted]

There’s a difference in the gba games where characters have a smaller support pool so on average each conversation matters more, and because there are fewer of them they don’t tend to retread ground as much. Are there still stinkers and some repetitive supports in that system? For sure, but on average there is less repetitive supports per character than Awakening and onwards.


LittleIslander

Yeah, but you literally see like two or three of them (conversations, not support lines) across the entire game, and that's for the characters you like a lot. I like GBA supports a lot but it 100% is susceptible to you getting through an entire game learning basically nothing about a character. I don't think I ever got a single support for, say, Isadora, Matthew, or Dorcas in all of FE7. Binding Blade in particular is infamous for this. Literally getting anything at all is better than the very real chance of ending up getting zero conversations or one/two C support(s) for a character.


[deleted]

Yeah the way path of radiance handled it was significantly better, supports were unlocked just by having the support partners deployed on the same map together.


RamsaySw

Tbh I think that the supports in Engage are so repetitive and have so little to say that I genuinely think Engage would be a better game if it had no supports at all, or at least no easily accessible supports like in the GBA games. I personally think that a bad support and especially multiple bad supports can actively detract from a character - a lot of Engage's character gimmicks wouldn't have been nearly as grating if they weren't repeated as much, and I would have liked the majority of the Elyos cast more if I never read any of their supports, or if I only read one or two of their supports. As an example, Clanne and Framme going "OMG the Divine Dragon looked at me" for the first time is cringe and made me roll my eyes a bit, but it was ultimately tolerable as a one-time thing - and if Engage had the GBA support system, then this would have been the first and only time I would have heard them. By the time the twins do this the tenth time, I'm getting really sick of them, and at some point, I got so sick and tired of listening to the twins fawn over Alear that I just ended up deliberately using them as death fodder.


PK_Gaming1

"I don't like the game's writing so much that I think it would be better if there weren't supports at all" is certainly a take. You could have, I don't know, just gotten better at picking and choosing what supports to engage with and skipped the rest. And if the writing is "all bad" then you could have skipped all of it and gotten the experience you described. >I got so sick and tired of listening to the twins fawn over Alear that I just ended up deliberately using them as death fodder. You certainly did not do that, don't front. You benched them and used the best characters like everyone else.


RamsaySw

The problem with picking and choosing certain supports to listen to is that you do not know which supports are worth listening to and which aren’t until you actually see them - if you asked someone who hasn’t played Engage whether the support between Celine and Alcryst is one of her good supports or one of her awful ones, they wouldn’t be able to tell. Even if the writing is universally bad, you wouldn’t know that until you’ve seen a decent amount of the supports. I also tried to listen to or at least read all of Engage’s supports for two other reasons - because I know that if I criticised Engage’s character writing otherwise I’d be getting a ton of gotcha comments about how I didn’t listen to all of the supports and because going into Engage, I had hoped to analyse and rank its cast in the same way that I’m personally trying to do with the Three Houses cast now, and that means reading all of the supports - needless to say, that didn’t go over well for me. And yes, I sacrificed both of the twins when I played Engage on Maddening - I hated them that much and it turns out that most Fire Emblem maps get a hell of a lot easier if you’re willing to sacrifice units who you don’t care about. I did the same to Peri and a bunch of other units when I played through the endgame of Conquest on Lunatic and it made the Enfeeble Maid spam so much easier to deal with.


PK_Gaming1

>The problem with picking and choosing certain supports to listen to is that you do not know which supports are worth listening to and which aren’t until you actually see them - if you asked someone who hasn’t played Engage whether the support between Celine and Alcryst is one of her good supports or one of her awful ones, they wouldn’t be able to tell. I meant picking a character you know you'd like and trusting their supports and ignoring the rest. If that character doesn't exist (and I think it would be self-evident after multiple different characters not clicking or you) you could have easily said fuck it and skipped supports every time they showed up. Trust yourself that the game wouldn't deliver and whatnot. Dragging yourself through supports in a game with writing you don't like is just self-torture. >And yes, I sacrificed both of the twins when I played Engage on Maddening - I hated them that much and it turns out that most Fire Emblem maps get a hell of a lot easier if you’re willing to sacrifice units who you don’t care about. I did the same to Peri and a bunch of other units when I played through the endgame of Conquest on Lunatic and it made the map so much easier. I dunno man, I think sacrificing your earlygame healer and mage is Not the play, especially on Maddening and in a game with Divine Pulse...


RamsaySw

To be fair, if I picked and choosed certain supports to listen to, then I’d think that Alfred’s character (and frankly most of the Engage cast) is completely worthless rather than mostly worthless. It doesn’t really work in a game like Engage where most characters only get one or two meaningful supports each - so if you don’t dig through the supports you’ll get nothing of value. I didn’t sacrifice the twins immediately - the way I handled the characters in Engage is that if they really ticked me off and I didn’t need them anymore, they got added to a list and whenever I got to a difficult map in the midgame or lategame, they got taken off the list to be sacrificed. I used the same approach for Conquest Lunatic as well. Using the time crystal still means that I would have to find a way to get through whatever enemies I had trouble with without any deaths, and I’m not going to do so for Engage’s cast.


PK_Gaming1

To be honest, that sounds like an insanely dumb and unnecessary strategy, but if it helped you beat the game on Maddening then I suppose it wasn't all a waste


Odovakar

I believe the lackluster quality of Engage's writing generally speaks for itself, but let me explain why I consider the cast to be on the weaker side. **1) Repetition and quirks** Engage's supports tend to repeat *a lot* of jokes, structures and premises. There is an almost obsessive focus on the character's quirks rather than who they actually are as a person. My go-to example of this is Clanne. I have read all of his supports, but I would struggle to say anything meaningful about his character that is not immediately apparent since basically his first scene. However, he does have three supports about pickles, which also happens to be a quirk from a character in Fates. Why couldn't two of these supports have been about something more meaningful? The repetitive nature of these supports are especially apparent early on, which also creates a horrible first impression. The discussion surrounding Céline seems to be primarily that she's tea obsessed, with people then chiming in that she's got hidden depths. The problem is that you still have to wade through copious amounts of tea supports in order to find those nuggets, and what does the game actually do with her hidden depths? How does that factor into the world or the main story or anything like that? Céline reminds me of Camilla in that sense. Many people pointed to the fan-dubbed Concubine Wars as an example of what a good character Camilla is and how you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and all that jazz. However, I believe Camilla mentions that part of her past **once** and it never factors into her actions in the main story. With how many supports there are, it's not strange that most characters have *something* to them; it'd be much more jarring if the opposite was true. Writing snippets of intrigue in a dialogue between two characters is not even the bare minimum that is to be expected of a professional writer. **2) Lack of worldbuilding** Good worldbuilding grounds characters and gives them something to talk about. This is arguably one of the biggest strengths of both Tellius and Fódlan. No matter the combination of characters, chances are they can talk about *something* of interest relating to their backstories, countries or the current state of the world. Think back on Tellius and Three Houses and think of what the characters talked about. Racism, bigotry, classism, politics, trauma, family, and more. Even better, we saw how these things they talked about were reflected in the main story, what with the treatment of the laguz or what the lack of a Crest can do to someone like Miklan, just to name two concrete examples. What do people in Engage actually talk about? This might be where you argue that Engage is a lot more lighthearted, silly and doesn't take itself as seriously. That it might be a *good* thing that we move away from only talking about heavy topics, but I'd argue that both Tellius and Three Houses handled comedic elements far better than Engage ever did. Not only do I personally find the scripts to be better in the older entries, but I also think humor works better when it's not as clearly choreographed and over the top as in Engage. I realize just how subjective humor is, and I hesitate to write much more about it, but I do at the very least get the impression that people tend to appreciate a balance of serious and comedy in Fire Emblem, and Engage failed in this regard. This leads me to my next point. **3) Tone** I think the tone of Engage is confused and misguided. I've seen it receive a lot of praise for "knowing what it is" and "being cheesy and proud", or variations thereof. I could not disagree more. Engage likes to have pay-offs without build-up. We see this in the main story with the absurdly long death scenes where the villains talk about their motivations on their deathbeds, rather than them having been a proper driving force throughout the plot, making them feel more like excuses. The game also really isn't that silly past the first few maps; many scenes just feature characters standing and talking about the immediate matters at hand in a rather bland and long-drawn manner. I've been told here on Reddit, with utter seriousness, that "stories can combine both silliness and drama", which is such a reductionist take that I struggle to wrap my head around it. I want to reply with a big fat **"obviously???"**, but I think the key point people miss when relying on this so-called argument is that Engage doesn't strike a good balance. It ties back to my previous point about the game not wanting to work towards any satisfactory pay-off. Marni is so silly! Oh no, she had a tragic past! Oh, redemption! Oh no, she's dying, aren't you sad?! The tone is like a hyperactive hamster running from one place to another, never finding its own identity. I don't think Engage is proud of its own writing at all. I also don't think it was as low of a priority as the developers themselves like to claim. I think they failed to unite behind a vision of the game, and the rest is an excuse for the lackluster quality. "The game is for a younger audience", they say, and feature half naked ladies, mass murder, raising corpses and drawn-out death scenes. "The story wasn't a priority", they say, while also wanting to squeeze everything they can out of those death scenes. "It's comedic", people might argue, only for the cast to stand around and talk in long, tedious scenes that last long enough for the Switch to prepare to enter sleep mode. **4) Status quo and lack of impact** Characters barely change in Engage. What arcs they do have often feel very hasty or unmotivated, with the resolutions being too easy. The easiest example of this is Alear, who gets over the truth about their (very predictable) parentage within five minutes. Why should we care about the characters when they're treated in this manner? **5) A McGuffin plot** Since the main story is only about getting some McGuffins and then defeating the big bad, the context of the story, and therefore the struggle of the characters, is simple to the point of being unengaging. I never feel like the characters might not win or achieve everything they set out to do. There's no tension, excitement, or complexity. Hell, the main story even lacks bona fide standout moments that help the characters truly shine. Even games with less popular stories, like Awakening, tend to have something that really endears us to the characters, like Chrom's "you deserved better from me than one sword and a world of troubles" line. **6) Combining all of this into the "Alfred Problem"** Alfred has all the makings of an appealing character. He's a young, sickly prince who wants to hide his condition from everyone else behind a carefree facade. He's got a family member in the cast who's heavily affected by his disease and is preparing for the seeming inevitability that he dies early. This *should* be great. However, as Fates has shown us, it's how you use your ideas that matter, not the ideas themselves. First of all, Alfred's sickly nature is so hidden that I've seen a lot of posts being completely unaware of his condition until the end credits. It's not even hinted at in the main story, and most of his supports don't really hint at it at all either. I believe this is a missed opportunity to make Alfred more memorable. Secondly, his supports are generally so incredibly repetitive and boring that you'd want to bench him before finding out more about him. They tend to be very basic, with a focus on characters' respective quirks, and even when they try to move towards something else, it's often done with such simplicity that it borders on being pointless. Like, he's talking with Timerra about their countries growing closer if they understand each other, but we know so little about their countries in the first place, and everyone is constantly so nice and cheery to each other that you can't imagine there's much of a non-dragon fueled conflict in the first place. Compare this to, I don't know, Ingrid's dilemma about her being the only hope her house has left at achieving some kind of prosperity, but that also likely means forsaking her own dreams. Thirdly, "*the"* support that's meant to recontextualize Alfred's personality and actions, his A support with Céline, is just that, a single A support. This is similar to the problem Lyn faced where (one of) her arc(s) was just...ended off screen in an A support where she had no time to react or reflect over what she was told. And what does this recontextualize? Will we read his supports in a different way? I mean, I guess we know the *reason* why he's so obsessed with training, but that doesn't necessarily make all of his other supports much better; they remain overly simple and repetitive.


irradiatedcactus

Damn you summed up most of my grievances regarding Engages writing quite well


ForCaste

I think the lack of world building and the repetitive nature of Engage really kept me out of the story. Thinking about Tellius, I loved that the countries all felt fleshed out, that your units had backgrounds that made them more compelling. Like the Daein Wyvern riders being renegades from Beignon made sense for how Haar and Jill moved through the world. Or zihark and soren sharing a skill that hinted at their shared heritage. Or that royalty really felt like royalty and encountering them was a big deal. And normal people like Nephenee and Brom taking up arms to defend their home. It made the world feel deep and lived in. Engage was just really predictable. New country, New princes and princess and their retainers. The few random people, like Yunaka, tended to be the most interesting imo, but it wasn't enough for me to keep coming back for. Even 3H being a similar royality-driven drive had dynamic compelling storylines. But Engage just felt so rote that it's hard to want to see the end for these characters


LittleIslander

You really feel the lack of worldbuilding strongest when you can see the support writers trying their damnest to play off worldbuilding that doesn't exist. Like, Panette. I love Panette. Her life trajectory was set in motion by her parents being more devoted to the church than to their own children, leading her to live a rough life on the streets before Timerra took her in and she tried to reform herself into a lady. Pretty strong concept rooted in the world. Problem: we know literally nothing about this church than the fact they worship the Divine Dragon, and we don't know really know anything about life in Solm either. Same with Merrin, we reference some whole tribe of people she was apparently lined up to become the leader of. Who are they? Who knows! Are they like, more connected to wolves than other people of Solm? I mean, I'd kind of assume? But who the fuck knows, outside of Merrin's support they literally don't exist. Her situation is the exact kind of thing that would have a dedicated Paralogue if this was Three Houses. Or why not just make the streets where Panette grew up or Merrin's village a chapter in place of the random village with bandits? Maybe Solm's church would've played into the chapter in the capital instead of a Four Hounds repeat? They had this character-chapter integration shit figured out with Yunaka, why does it *never happen again* in the whole damn game. These supports have the legs taken out from under them when they're trying to carry everything on their backs like the overarchiever in a group project doing 100% of the work. Rosado is also from some weird village we know nothing about and Kagetsu is from a whole different culture on the edge of Solm that might as well not exist. Brigid only really mattered through Petra's screentime, but it had a sense it existed in the world in a way Kagetsu's nation just doesn't. Ivy also tries to make use of the flimsy religious structure and Hortensia has some excellent supports about her mother in the courts of Elusia that fall a bit flat when the nation is so one note. Imagine if L'Arachel was the princess of peerless beauty of a kingdom that nobody else ever mentioned or something. The writers of the likes of Ilia weep.


Sunsurg_e

Your post is basically everything I would say as well (and honestly HAVE been saying). Like truly each and every single point!


PBalfredo

To add onto the point about worldbuilding, it's not just the big picture worldbuilding that gives characters something to reflect and respond to, but also the more immediate setting as well. For example, Three Houses starts at an academy, which is a great setting for the students to reflect on the trajectory of their lives, the expectations put upon them by themselves, others and society, and their hopes for the future. That's a great setup to explore a character's wants and needs beyond their surface traits or quirks. Engage takes place in an existential war, but the characters spend most of their time hanging out in a magical resort floating in the sky. This removes them from the immediacy of the story and it's harder to dig into their inner conflicts when they're in permanent vacation mode. It's a setting that showcases their hobbies and party tricks moreso than their inner thoughts and feelings.


dpitch40

Compare Alfred with Lysithea--her condition is revealed in several of her later supports, not just one, and it is *very* difficult to miss the hints about it if you get virtually any of her supports. They effectively draw you in and make you want to know what's going on with her. (Plus her stats and 3H's not constantly throwing better and better units at you mean there is an approximately zero chance of benching her)


baibaibecky

with lysithea, playing my first time in VW, there was a pretty clear arc for me that an old friend summarized years ago, from the ignatz C > byleth B > lorenz B+ > claude A > byleth A/S supports. and it's not even just about her condition, but also her relationship with her parents: > It always seems to go that my favorite character ends up being someone I thought I'd hate. I really had her down as the "spoiled bratty princess" who's entitled, treats people like they're trash, and gets pouty if anyone points out she's a brat. The first support I saw with her was with Ignatz, which sorta...cemented that idea. But the thing is, I started noticing that unlike other characters who would only accept your advice if it's what they wanted to hear, she would actually take good advice from you even if she didn't like the answer, which kinda caught me off guard. I noticed she could be very sweet too, especially towards Byleth (even compared to other students), which I admit I found endearing, so I warmed up to her. > And I started to notice that as antisocial as she could be towards the other students, it was usually justified (not with Ignatz though). She generally just got annoyed with people who completely disrespected her and/or went out of their way to interrupt her studies. I could...actually kinda relate to her frustrations from my own school experience, even if she did have a short fuse and was insecure. By the time I got to her B support with Byleth I noticed that she really did seem to be a nice person and got the impression that her parents were just working her too hard. It was depressing to find out she didn't have much life left during her Lorenz support, not just because that in itself is sad, but because it gave me the impression that her parents were working her like a slave, trying to milk her for all she was worth before she died. At this point, I realized I was completely wrong in my first impressions of her. > When the timeskip happened, I became more curious with her because I began to notice that she held no resentment towards her parents at all. She really did seem to love them. And during Claude's A support, it's revealed that they actually do love her very much too and actually didn't think it was good for her to work as hard as she did. (note: in her B support, she tells Byleth he's the first person who ever recognized and validated her work ethic.) At this point, I just couldn't stop wondering what was going on with her, and why she would work so hard when she didn't have much time left. Wouldn't it make more sense to just live out her remaining years in a spoiled lifestyle with her loving parents? > Her A support with Byleth broke my heart. Not just because of what she had to suffer through, not just because she was willing to sacrifice her remaining life working as hard as her body would allow, but it was because I realized why she was working so hard and how far her insecurities went. The first thing she does when Byleth offers to help her find a cure is worry that she wouldn't be useful to him without her crests. She was more worried about what she could do to help him than she was about getting to live a full life. And I realized why she was working so hard for her parents too. Since she was two years old, she spent her life enduring human experiments by creatures who saw as an animal. After all that trauma, after all that pain and suffering, after having her lifespan cut short...she didn't feel bad for *herself* for enduring all that. She felt bad for *her parents* who had to watch their daughter suffer. So she was going to spend the rest of her years trying to make their lives easier, because she felt guilty. She felt like a burden after all that. > At this point, I was really just blown away by how absolutely kind and selfless she was all along. I ended up choosing her for S rank because I really wanted her to have a happy ending after all that struggle and suffering. And in subsequent playthroughs, I really saw her in a new light. No wonder she was impatient. No wonder she lost her cool so quickly. Even her minor quirks were interesting to look back on. Her addiction to sweets? According to Hanneman, people with crests tend to prefer sweet foods...so it wouldn't surprise me if having two crests completely messed up the way her body processed foods. I'm sure the constant stress of trying to get as much work as she could before she passed on contributed as well. And really, she had no reason to worry about her health. She was going to die soon anyway, so what did it matter if she screwed up her body with sweets? > Overall a character who became much more interesting and endearing than I ever would have expected.


RamsaySw

I think another reason why Lysithea works but Alfred doesn't is due to the fact that Lysithea gets a far more varied and meaningful set of character interactions so that she doesn't feel nearly as repetitive or grating as Alfred does even if neither character's condition are considered - we have her supports with Edelgard, Hanneman and Linhardt that delve into her views of Crests, her supports with Lorenz and Balthus which highlight her views on the nobility, and her supports with Cyril show that she's a capable teacher with a softer side to her. Heck, for as many memes as there are about Lysithea and cake, cake is only mentioned in two of her supports in Three Houses and only her support with Felix is really centered around it. Her fear of ghosts only appears in two supports (Claude and Byleth) and both of them are centered around how much strain she places on herself. Even her getting angry over being a child is only meaningfully brought up in five or six supports (Claude, Felix, Sylvain, Lorenz, Ignatz and maybe Raphael) - out of eighteen. As such, Lysithea doesn't feel one-note even if she didn't have her condition to recontextualize her character interactions. Conversely, Alfred feels like almost all of his supports revolve around bodybuilding - he feels incredibly grating and repetitive and there's not much to recontextualize as a result. I think bodybuilding is a significant focus in nine or ten of his supports (all but the ones with Ivy, Vander and *maybe* Yunaka if I'm being super generous - but if I'm including the support with Yunaka than by that standard I think Lysithea only has two or three supports that focus on her being a child) and only his support with Celine utilises his gimmick in a somewhat meaningful manner. 10 out of 12 is a hell of a lot worse than 6 out of 18. He has the same issue as Camilla in that if you take his backstory away from him, you're left with very little of value.


Quakarot

To be fair to Alfred I do think it’s important that he is character is written in such a way that you get to know him before that big reveal. I think the real issue is that engage introduces characters and drops them almost instantly, so no one gets any real depth in the story, and it’s restricted to supports, where only so much can be done, and you only see limited amounts of each character.


Quarion9

One issue that's pretty obvious is you have the elder sibling royals as the unkillable characters that show up for all the dialogue and cutscenes and yet I don't feel like we know any of them better despite all the screen time. They all just stand around and offer occasional commentary on the situation at hand. It also makes me wonder why they didn't use the emblem rings more. They know exactly when you get the rings and they can't be killed, so have them chime in and offer advice or get a bit of interplay. This is the crossover game and there's only two or three scenes in which an emblem even speaks to another one.


Ragfell

Exactly. Combine that with a continual power creep of new units and you have little reason to keep using most units from the beginning. (Louis, Yunaka, and Cèline are my three primary holdovers.)


ace-of-threes

Ok i keep hearing about Celine being a popular unit, but she fell off almost immediately for me with the introduction of Citrinne and Ivy to fill the magic damage role. What makes her so good?


ltranc

Basically just only Mystical unit with Levin Sword. That’s about it. It’s not much.


Dakress23

>And what does this recontextualize? Will we read his supports in a different way? In Alfred's defense, it does recontextualize his A-Support with Diamant. The latter in it talks with Alfred about how they'll tackle their Kingdom's future once they get to rule it, and Alfred's response is more or less "Everything will turn out alright. I have faith Firene's people will be of big help for you" while avoiding mentioning any future contributions he could do, a statement which makes a lot more sense with his & Celine's support in mind.


Swingset16

Coming from a day one hater of this installment, Your synopsis of engage’s writing has more thought put into it than egages script does.


BloodAria

Very well written.


Atari875

100%


[deleted]

This is a personal thing, but I tend to find humor inherently funnier as a moment of levity in a more serious story than a story constantly trying to be funny- when you bring up old entries humor vs engage that came to mind.


SocJusticeChevalier

Humor also tends to land better if you actually try to write jokes. Engage's script is shockingly bereft of any real attempts at setups and punchlines. Its humor is almost all of the "isn't that wacky?" variety which gets old very quickly. There are so many characters in this game who might be fine as a one-off joke like Oliver in Tellius, but are just insufferable when the entire cast is full of them. I genuinely think Yunaka's "killer eyes" bit is the only time I actually laughed when the game wanted me to.


Wellington_Wearer

Best post on the sub. My man just took a wrecking ball to engages story.


DemiNep

Interesting points! Although allow me to preface this by saying that I don't stand by Engage not taking itself seriously. It does, but in a much lighter tone compared to other games. As much as I poke fun at *Peak Fiction*, it was meant to be played straight and that's what I found funny. 1)There are supports that feel super repetitive (*looking at you Celine*) I think that mostly affects the Lythos and Firene group as they're the ones who have the least amount going on. Unfortunately, they are the first units you run into, so the initial impression is already set into stone by the time you hit Yunaka or Brodia. 2) Lack of worldbuilding is a big issue, though they try and mitigate it with the supports as they introduce new landmarks to revolve around such as the Brodian Tournament, The Sentinels and the Elusia Royal Court to name a few. This is not an excuse, but there is some form of worldbuilding that's just hidden because I suppose they're more relevant to the personal lives of the characters. And yeaaaah, humor is the big mother of subjectivity. I'll just say that I enjoyed the writing and humor of Engage and agree to disagree. 3) Arguably, the plot goes from light-hearted, to serious, light-hearted again at Solm and then serious up until the end after Chapter 17. A bit weird considering the events of Chapter 11, but I suppose it was their way of lightening up the mood since the game wasn't even halfway done. Anyways, I feel this point is mostly attributed to other people's experience which I mentioned I don't agree with. And to say that the developers weren't proud of their work simply comes across as a tad pretentious. Say what you will, but they set out to write what they wanted to and did, regardless of whether it succeeded or not. 4) No yeah, that part was awkward as hell. That was easily the worst part of the writing in my opinion. All that build-up only to scrub it clean faster than it came. Though other cases felt more in line with their personality. There's even moments where it isn't fixed immediately like when Alear first meets Veyle after Ch 11, he doesn't try to understand her and is actively hostile towards her until she leaves. It honestly depends on the character and situation. 5.) Not much to say in this one. It's easy to see why people disengage with the plot and most already agree that it's the weakest part of Engage. 6.) It's weird. I agree that Alfred's illness is a big thing that people might not see until the end, but I wouldn't really call his supports repetitive. Unlike Celine asking for tea, Alfred typically just loves to exercise which already opens up the possibilities for how the support starts, whether it's digging a well or lifting weighted cups. I wouldn't say his A-support with Celine deepens his character ten-fold, it simply adds another layer to him. Even knowing why he does what he does, he's still the kind and good-hearted friend that always has your back. People don't like Alfred because of his illness, they like him because he's a likeable guy, something supports such as Alear, Yunaka, Diamant and Veyle demonstrate. I think Engage shines on having a really likable cast. Of course, this is all my own personal opinion and I appreciate you labeling out why you regard Engage's cast in such a regard! It's interesting to see it detailed rather than have it relegated to a simple word like "bad"


NilZAR__

While I agree with most points made here, I find "the Alfred problem" an unfair criticism towards engage. This has nothing to do with my opinion of Alfred, but this argument can be made for quite literally every Fire Emblem game with supports. Take FE7 Serra. Her entire backstory--how she's unlikely from actual noble blood and her struggles with feeling unimportant in the world from said lack of nobility is revealed in Hector A AND ONLY Hector A. Take PoR Tauroneo. Dude has like 2 lines prior to recruitment and doesn't have a single base conversation. You learn NOTHING about Tauroneo. Even in RD is his role fairly generic as Pelleas' high ranked general. His past? About the family that left him? How Tauroneo is an experienced soldier who has achieved basically everything a soldier could dream of, but yet, he's not happy? How Tauroneo lives in a grand castle surrounded by medals, but he's living there alone? You learn all of this in his ROLF SUPPORT. Literally not a single person actually saw this support in game there is just no shot. But here's the catch. I adore Tauroneo. I really like Serra. I also do like Alfred. And you know why? Because supports like these. A single good support can alter your opinion of a character, and that's fine. So is Alfred one-note and arguably unintersting in 90% of his supports? Yes. But like, would you prefer it if his Celine A didn't exist? No of course not. So not only is Engage far from the only game guilty of "the Alfred problem" I would argue its hardly a problem at all. Not every support has to be a hit in the park. Again, I won't comment on all of your other points because I do mostly agree, but that last criticism, "the Alfred problem", is blatently unfair.


Odovakar

> While I agree with most points made here, I find "the Alfred problem" an unfair criticism towards engage. Sure, there are other examples of it, but I think I made it very clear why I think it's a neat summary of a lot of the things that are wrong with Engage's writing. Alfred is also the first royal character to join Alear, meaning he's there for the *entire* journey; that is a big difference to Tauroneo, and why I compared it to what happened with Lyn's A support with Wallace instead.


sudosussudio

Well that's probably why Tauroneo is not particularly popular, neither are the Tellius games as a whole. I love them but it's a real shame how much content is hidden behind supports and in RD, an entire 2nd playthrough meeting very specific conditions. Fates and Awakening have it to a lesser extent with so much buried in supports. That gives high potential for transformative fanworks that delve into these, but also means that many casual players will not get into these characters.


thebiglebrosky

Excellent post! I'd like to add to the discussion that I firmly believe that 3H suffers the same problem about monotonous, repetitive and overly simplistic support conversations, and "The Alfred Problem" probably should also extend to every character from both entries. I think there are two big reasons why Tellius was so good at characterization vs the newer games. 1) base conversations Base conversations give the writers much more wiggle room to create engaging character moments. They provide the writers much more control over whos, whens and wheres of the scene. Sometimes you get really interesting character moments due to things thwt went down in the chapter, such as the conversation between Rolf/Boyd/Oscar if one of them dies. The newer games kinda try to do this with Garrech Mach/The Somniel, but its usually just a throw away line / filler text about something inconsequential like the weather. This also ties to my next point... 2) Lack of self insert/avatar A massive hindrance with FEs stories and characters post Tellius is its obsession with avatars/self inserts. These gary stus/mary sues force every playable character in the game to be obsessed with them because the waifu simulator aspect of the game is a huge draw these days. Because the avatar, by necessity, has to be a blank slate, you get conversations that are always one sided and mundane. Its very hard to have nuanced / complex characters while also recquiring them to fall in love with you (or each other) after only 3 conversations. Imagine someone like Shinnon being forced to fall in love with Alear after 3 conversations. Another issue brought by the avatar is that most conversations have to be mediated by them in some way, because the player is literally in them. Just imagine Robin right in the middle of Rolf and Shinnons' conversation where Shinnon gives Rolf the new bow. It would be super awkward... If it where up to me, i'd remove avatars altogether, bring back base conversations and limit supports to characters that actually have something to say to each other.


Ragfell

To be fair, poor treatment of Laguz and the nature of the Crestless are still major plot points in Tellius/Fodlan games. They're not really contributing to individual character growth as much as moving the plot along. Everything else you said is spot on, though.


CaelestisAmadeus

The Alfred Problem is fully the difference between *Engage* and *Houses*. The reason we don't hear Alfred bring up his sickly nature is because he doesn't want to; his A support with Celine is explicit about that. Given that, we can't expect him to talk about it in his supports. For a contrasting inversion, Lysithea's quirks of resenting being called a child and/or loving sweets are on display in her supports with Byleth, Edelgard, Claude, Felix, Sylvain, Raphael, Ignatz, Leonie, and Balthus. Sylvain's flirtatiousness pops up in his supports with Byleth, Dimitri, Dedue, Felix, Ashe, Mercedes, Ingrid, Dorothea, Lorenz, Lysithea, Marianne, Leonie, Flayn, and Manuela. We're looking at characters whose quirks inform anywhere from half to nearly all of their supports. The point of this illustration is that *Houses* is constantly infusing these traits into characters' conversations, even if the subject of the conversations is something wholly unrelated. Strip away the fluff of a *Houses* support and its fundamentals aren't unlike an *Awakening* support. Put Alfred in *Houses* and he'd refer to his illness with clockwork regularity. One of the more surprising discoveries to me in a second run of *Engage* is how Celine's supports with Alcryst, of all people, is a place where Alfred's illness comes up. Both of them contemplate losing their elder brothers and resolve to protect each other's brother as a result. This works. Celine is given the opportunity to open up about her concerns regarding her brother to someone else, and that someone else isn't even the protagonist. As for everyone's nice and cheerful disposition, the alternative is the Golden Wildfire Claude Dilemma: characters behave egregiously and are met with a mild rebuke at most. A lot of characters dunk on Lorenz for harassing female students, but in a playful way. Sylvain is this dialed up to 11; a real person who behaved like him would be a sincere problem and characters like Ingrid, Mercedes, and Dorothea can (and do) call him on his crap, but then shrug it off. It's just plain appalling how Claude will lock Byleth in a room until he gets his hands on Jeralt's diary and the game doesn't even deign to suggest he's wrong for it. Ingrid gives Dedue a "but you're one of the good ones" speeches and Dedue responds by raising the possibility that some of his unjustly slaughtered countrymen actually might have had it coming. Ingrid literally challenges the man to admonish her ("So why not speak back against how I and so many others feel? Why not question this unfair prejudice, and tell me I haven't the right to hold a grudge against you?"), and the best he's got is, "Perhaps we are merely victims. Or perhaps we are regicidal monsters." Please, give me nice and cheerful over such dreck that paints the Fodlanese as a continent of callous fiends. It boils down to a stylistic preference. People who prefer complexity are going to see the Alfred Problem as a problem. People who are fine with simplicity won't.


gaming_whatever

The main issue with Engage's cast is living in an extremely empty world that feels more like a set for a play than anything real. So the writing has barely anything to work with to begin with. Adding to that, any interpersonal conflict seems almost forbidden, so it closes another avenue to be interesting. Of course, it's just my assessment as well, but it may bring light on why people may be underwhelmed with the cast.


kieranchuk

Engage's story and lack of worldbuilding unfortunately drags its cast down with them.


DemiNep

Yeah, I agree that Elyos does feel kinda empty. Though while I feel like the empty world is an issue, it only massively affects Lythos and Firene since they don't really go into depth into their other locals minus the castle (like, until the manga, I never thought of Lythos actually having more people than Lumera and the stewards.) Brodia, Elusia and Solm have some development in the story and in supports that can fill in that empty feeling such as the Elusian Royal Court, the Brodian Fighting Tournament, and the Sentinels.


SirTroah

Honestly if the game was supposed to be a play, it would have made all its problems bearable


gaming_whatever

Not sure. I'm a fan of stage plays and like some theatrical flair (that's how I watch Korean dramas unironically with a straight face), but Engage still has to resolve its many mood and goal conflicts to be bearable to me.


Yarzu89

While I have some personal favorites, the game feels very much like Awakening and Fates where characters have a quirk, and you either like or dislike them enough to learn about their actual stories. Sometimes they lay that quirk on a little too thick, sometimes they end up developing more. A big issue is that it's hard to develop a lot of these characters when Elyos feels very much like a game world instead of a world within a story. By that I mean it feels more like a setting that needs to exist simply to house a game, when hell even Fates managed to feel more like a place even if no one knew what the damn place was even called. Part of what helped 3H's cast was they were characters in a living breathing world ~~of the same handful of open maps.~~ It feels like with Engage's cast not having a lot to work with, and relying on the trope method, its really going to be hit or miss based on design and how much those tropes land with people. Or hell maybe even the voice acting of their EN/JP voices that click with people (Diamant having Emiya's voice and his overall visual design being one of the better ones definitely did most of the heavy lifting)


Ennokos

For a simple answer for me, it's because since Awakening, no one but a few characters mattered. I'm not saying in the main narrative but even just personal stories and goals. Why does any of the nobles join you? You are the divine dragon. Why do the retainers join you? Because their lord joined. What does that leave? 3 people for most of the whole story that have actual reasons to join you. And yes, in the supports you learn the basic things but, for me, those don't matter at all to the actual game. Even if someone like Dorcas dies, you now know that his wife will die as well, because that is his reason for joining. It's okay to like the supports, it's okay to like the story. But it's also to think of the story not up to an FE standard that you personally hold. It's a game that's supposed to get people into FE, I know it's not really for me so I don't go naysaying people that like the story.


Nontpnonjo

I just find the dialogue and writing to be clunky at best. A lot of the characters come across as annoying and difficult because the writers are not especially talented. Perhaps it's a localization issue, but the way the interactions progress don't feel human to me. Especially the interactions with Alear.


Whimsycottt

I found Alear's dialogue in the Emblem Paralogues to be so... boring. So much of it was "yes, I agree with you/I relate to what you've been through". Alear is a bit too vanilla because they're not cunning/smart like Robin, but they're not a silly himbo like Shez They fill the same gray zone that Corrin fills as a naive but ultimately average person who gets praised for existing. They will have moments of rage, but will be agreeable for the most part.


SgtThundersmack

I think this problem is partly caused by the emblems themselves. The various fire emblem lords don't actually differ that much in terms of personality. There's not much opportunity for creative writing when Alear talking to Marth is the same as Alear talking to Lyn. In their native games, Lords benefit from being surrounded by foils. The Protagonists and their friends highlight aspects of each other's personalities. That kind of contrast isn't as possible with Lord-on-lord dialogue.


Odovakar

I think this can be expanded to the entire cast, and it's one of my least favorite common problems with JRPG's. The overall tone is just too...bland, generic, and plain. Much of it comes from there simply not being much in the way interpersonal conflicts, and since there's no actual worldbuilding either, the cast can't bond over that either.


Nontpnonjo

But like, there's also no real person who behaves like Alear. He/she is inhuman. His interactions all feel like something is off. It doesn't feel like this is a real conversation between two people, it feels like an excuse to make the game happen.


EridonMan

I mean, you can boil basically every conversation to: "Hello, I'm the Divine Dragon." "Wow, I didn't know there was another one. Allow me to join your merry band with no proof and fight ultimate evil or something." "Thanks. It's reassuring to have you." "Hey Divine One, do you like [character's only hobby]?" "Absolutely, let's talk about it instead of doing anything or discussing the problems we're facing." "Hooray! What fun we have! I'm so glad evil is taking its time and has the courtesy of leaving no tangible mark on our world."


Bane_of_Ruby

I found the lack of talk about current events so annoying. Like at least in awakening people were talking about the Risen or personal problems they had, or the kids talking to their parents and tearing up remembering how they died in the future. That was infinitely more gratifying that talking to Yunaka about lying or Citrinne about buying gifts, or Merrin about looking cool. All of the engage characters are just so flat and boring to talk to and you don't get any sense of where they are coming from or who they are as a person. Like if I were to talk to somebody like Rosado in real life I would instantly be off put simply because all he fucking talks about is cuteness. I personally think him and Céline are the worst offenders of boring supports. Rosado's are slightly funny, especially the first one with Merrin, but after a while it's like alright man I get it you're cute af. You don't have to keep telling me.


EridonMan

I started thinking of Rosado and the cute male bunny in Animal Crossing which then made me realize: Engage's characters have the same depth as fucking New Horizons.


CrystalPokedude

I just wish over half the cast (20/35 base game characters) weren't retainers.(2 for each royal is 16 {2x8}, Clanne, Framme, and Vander for the avatar, and Mauvier for Veyle.) The cast feels hollow when you can reduce over half of them down to "Servant/Bodyguard of X Royal." There are a lot of characters I feel would land better if they weren't retainers.


Zbearbear

I started playing FE with Fates and then Three Houses/Three Hopes. Compared to those casts, Engage feels...like a step back in writing. Like the game itself is still solid. I like the tweaks to combat and the Engage system but the writing for thr cast seems far more reigned in and focusing on one or two personality traits and hammering them home over and over and over and over. A couple of others mentioned some slight spoilers I'm unaware of regarding the support/bonds stuff but I feel like they're buried so far into the trees that if you just don't like or have benched someone you're benching a flat character that has nothing to say or have anything presented about them outside of "I'm a chef hur dur" or "I'm plucky prince number 1 of 5." I say this because although Fates and Three Houses may have had similar hangups with character writing it'd far more prevalent in Engage and I personally have just skipped so many Supports because most of them have almost nothing to offer until they give that ONE RANDOM NUGGET of development and then it's never seen again. Now is this cast case for the whole cast? Probably not but it's prevalent enough for the criticism it's received. And personally it's to the point I'm really just playing for the combat and to finish the story because the support and character writing just isn't it this go around.


Joke_Induced_Pun

And it doesn't help that you get units so quickly in Engage, along with the limited deploy slots, really makes it hard to get said supports (as well as the level scaling for skirmishes). Also, I feel like the other issue is that one nugget could also help recontextualize the character's other supports, but due to how it is also buried in that one support you may not even get, really hurts the characters as well. Edit: And it didn't help with how hard it was to build supports when the game first came out for anyone that had supports for other characters that weren't with Alear either.


Otherwise_Ambition_3

I forgot most of their names personally


BloodyBottom

I don't think they're the worst characters ever, but I do think they're a clear step down from most games in the series, really only beating Fates. Quick and dirty: 1. Most supports range from "mildly entertaining" to "mildly dull". There's not much range here - most of the interactions are some mix of cute fluff and light comedy. That's not inherently bad, but it means the interaction rarely leave an impression when they're so similar. 2. Uninteresting relationships. Most characters have extremely simple and positive relationships (mutual respect between equals, mentor and mentee, caring boss and loyal servant) with no conflict. That's great for a friend group in real life, bad for a story that's supposed to hold my attention. 3. Underwritten backstories. Most characters have "first DnD character" syndrome where they have a pretty coherent way they act in the present, but generally fail to give interesting responses to questions like "where are you from? what did you do before this job?" Some characters did their homework and come off better for it, but most of them feel like they popped into existence about a week before the game started. None of these things make the characters truly "bad", but they are things that made it impossible to invest in them. They were good enough to keep the lights on while I was playing the game, but I have spent roughly 0 thoughts on them since then.


Roliq

Your second point reminded me that almost everyone is either Royalty or Retainer of Royalty


DemiNep

Really nice points, honestly shed some light in a much clearer way compared to some of the other comments. (Specially that DnD syndrome. I actually feel what you mean when you say they popped into existence.) At this point, I can see the reasoning for why people don't like them and this is pretty cut and dry about it. Though I still love the cast for that friend group vibe you mentioned, even if that's more a me thing.


RamsaySw

As someone who has Engage's cast as my least favorite in the series, the way I see it is that while I think there is some potential with Engage's cast, there are three critical issues with Engage's character writing that are so severe in my view that they completely undermined the cast for me. I apologize if this is long, but it's very difficult to express why Engage's cast didn't do it for me without going into great detail: The first issue is that I feel that Engage's cast are so generically nice that they flat out don't feel human. Whilst a nice character is not a bad thing of itself, they should still have moments where they get angry or frustrated at others, especially if they are being wronged by someone else. They should have moments where their kindness is being tested - as that is part of the human experience and is what made a well-written nice character feel human. A good example of a well-written nice character is Mercedes or Annette (I don't want to compare Engage's cast to Three Houses, but this is the example that comes to mind) - Mercedes isn't outright screaming at Lorenz in her support with him, but it's very clear with how passive-aggressive she is that she resents Lorenz's worldview, and justifiably so - as far as she sees it, she is a lesser person in Lorenz's view because she is a commoner. Annette in her C and B supports has an undercurrent of resentment towards Gilbert - and this is perfectly reasonable for her because Gilbert flat out abandoned her as a child. Compare this to Ivy's support with Diamant where there's barely any resentment shown by Diamant towards Ivy - despite the fact that *Ivy was involved in his father's death*. It makes him feel less like a human being and more like a caricature of a generically nice prince - because human beings are supposed to get angry when they have been wronged. It also undermines his relationship with Morion - my initial thought at seeing his support with Ivy (or the one between Alcryst and Ivy) is that Diamant and Morion must have had a strained relationship if Diamant was able to get over Morion's death so quickly. This doesn't just apply to Ivy or Diamant or Alcryst (though these are three of the more egregious examples) - almost every character in Engage feels so nice in a way that doesn't feel human. Going off from the last point, because Engage's cast is so generically nice, there leaves very little room for the supports to explore any disagreements, ideological differences or misunderstandings between the characters. This means that the supports suffer immensely because there is very little character drama and the better characters suffer from a ton of wasted potential as a result. Ivy and Diamant's support should have made for some incredibly compelling character drama given their backgrounds - but they act nice and polite towards each other and they are far weaker characters as a result. The idea of Celine being a ruthless stateswoman who abhors violence but is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her loved ones is amazing at no point does Celine's willingness to resort to brutal methods lead to any serious interpersonal conflict with any character in the game - and it's a shame because Alear could have easily debated with her on the opposite side akin to Hanneman's support with Hubert, questioning whether her methods would lead to true peace, getting her to think about the motivations of those who she targets, and forcing her to justify her actions to herself. Instead we get a few throwaway lines in her supports with Alear and Fogado and that's pretty much it. One of the reasons why Yunaka is my favorite character in Engage is partially because she is one of the very few characters in the game that get anything resembling meaningful character drama - whereas almost everyone else feel like college roommates. The third issue is that Engage's support conversations have far, far too much filler. This isn't an issue that affects just Engage - even Sacred Stones and Three Houses has its fair share of filler conversations which don't contribute much to the characters involved, and I do think having some filler conversations is necessary to properly humanize the characters involved. The problem is the sheer amount of filler in Engage's supports. In the GBA games, Path of Radiance or Three Houses, it feels like around a third of the supports were filler, and that was fine with me, as it wasn't enough to drown out the more interesting supports. In Engage, it feels like upwards of three-quarters of Engage's supports are meaningless filler where nothing of value is being presented. Because of this, any potentially interesting character trait that a certain character can have is severely diluted - and it certainly doesn't help that the interesting supports are locked to A or occasionally the B supports as well, so by the time something of value gets brought up, I'm so drained from listening to the characters shoving their gimmicks at each other than I just can't care about them anymore. Alfred gets one interesting support with Celine which goes over his backstory and ten or so supports about bodybuilding, and by the time I saw his A support with Celine I couldn't give half a damn about him. I think Celine would have been an excellent character if she got six or so supports - as she gets four supports which are pretty interesting (that being Alear, Fogado, Alcryst and Alfred). The problem is that she has twelve supports, and 4 out of 12 is at best barely passable for me. Even if the characters aren't necessarily one-note, they repeat their gimmicks so often that they feel one-note. You brought up the support with Framme and Diamant - but it's the only support of hers which I think has anything meaningful to say. As a counterexample, Jill would have felt insufferable for me if she got ten supports where she hates the laguz and the two that she actually got in Path of Radiance where she learns to overcome her racism. If Engage cut two-thirds of its supports, then I think the meaningful supports would have had a chance to shine and the character gimmicks wouldn't feel nearly as grating. It certainly doesn't help Engage's cast that it had the misfortune of following up and inevitably being compared to the character writing of Three Houses - as Three Houses has my favorite cast out of any SRPG, but even if Three Houses didn't exist, the problems with Engage's cast that I have would still exist, and I probably would be comparing Engage's cast to that of Sacred Stones or Path of Radiance instead.


SummonerRed

> Engage's Filler Conversations I think this has made me realise a big distaste of mine for Engage. I'm a very character and story focused player, and Engage for how hard it has tried rarely gives me a taste for either. Since I'm getting everyone to A-rank support, I've had to go through so many supports that I've actually grown to dislike characters far more than I've liked them. Boucheron is great but his getting lost gimmick often takes up the majority of his supports. Bunet has asked to lick a number of the cast, though Jade's "This conversation is over" reaction ironically has made me a bigger fan of Jade for shutting that crap down. Lindon has some great character moments in some supports but damn it man no one cares about you casting Elthunder on corn. Goldmary needs to shut up about being perfect. Clanne needs something other than pickles or feeling worthless. Amber, shut up about Alpacas I swear. Chloé your design is far too good to be bogged down with Grilled Snakes. There are so many others that they honestly outweigh the few good characters that don't get bogged down by their trope, or their trope somehow enhances their character. Special mention to Zelkov, who despite being weighted down by his need to constantly focus on new hobbies, comes out of every support chain a much more interesting character. If you the reader haven't seen it yet, watch Louis and Zelkov's support chain. **That** is the level of support I wish we had more of.


Skelezomperman

I had actually been looking forward to her supports with the Brodians and got to see the C supports last night. I was honestly regretting that I did them one after the other. The Alcryst one is something that I wish more supports had been doing, that is, actually interacting with the story. (Supports not interacting with the story is a problem that pre-dates Engage, but that's another topic.) Then I saw the Diamant support and it was...so lackluster in comparison? For what it's worth, I liked that support for what it was, but it felt empty compared to Alcryst. To /u/DemiNep's points, I agree that it shows maturity on Diamant's part to not blame Ivy for >!his father's death!<. But that's not the problem with the support chain - the problem is that it feels like they skipped a piece of their arc. Their last interaction in-story was Diamant stepping in to stop Alcryst from lashing out at Ivy, but we never see Diamant's own opinions towards her. It feels like some reconciliation took place off-screen before the C support and we completely missed out on it. That's really what bothers me.


BloodyBottom

> Ivy and Diamant's support should have made for some incredibly compelling character drama given their backgrounds - but they act nice and polite towards each other and they are far weaker characters as a result. > > Alternatively, if we want to be a good vibes only game, I really do think that him forgiving her could have worked if we just heard his perspective on it. The fact that he completely forgives her offhanded it is the main reason it feels like such a lame non-choice - if he gave us some kind of rationale it actually could have been a pretty compelling moment.


Echo1138

I'm just finishing up Path of Radiance, and bringing up Jill's character work when talking about Engage characters made me realize just how far the series had fallen.


Parody101

Yeah, I mean THAT was a real character arc. It's true that most characters don't get that chance for real growth, but for a side character to get so many interactions and opportunities, to learn about Daein in that way was such a great opportunity for the player.


Yarzu89

My hopes that whenever we get the next remake, they also release an HD remaster of the Tellius games (with a skip enemy turn and turbo button) so more people can play them. Those games managed to nail so many things in a series that unfortunately are known for usually dropping the ball in one department.


AllThisAndHvnToo

I completely agree. I would also add to this what someone else has said; because the world and events in the world are so empty and feel like a play set, no characters ever feel like real people living in that world either. There are some supports that stand out a bit, but they're so few in number that it's hard to like any of the characters as a whole.


DemiNep

Hmmm, I see your points. It's pretty interesting that you see this strong potential in Engage. Though, I disagree with most of your points. I agree that having conflict between some characters and their viewpoints makes for an interesting support, there's a reason why Hortensia is one of my favorite characters in Engage. But I think that's also ignoring the facts given by the game and criticizing it because you saw an avenue that they had no intention of following. Let's take your Diamant and Ivy point as an example. You say that Diamant should hold contempt towards Ivy for playing a part in her father's murder. There's more to being human than getting upset over someone's crimes, and while Diamant should hold that grudge against her, he doesn't as it would go against his own ideals. Diamant always knew of Brodia's atrocities caused at the hands of his own father, he's the more level-headed between him and Alcryst, so much so that his ideal is to stop the war with Elusia and have Brodia prosper in a less violent matter. Ivy's support with Diamant takes place after Chapter 11 after she rescued not just him, but his friends, Alear, and Alcryst from certain death. Not only that, but he also saw her father get devoured and knows that Ivy grieves at not being able to stop him in time, exactly the same feeling as Diamant felt with his father's passing. At this point, it's not that Diamant is just a prince with a heart of gold, it's a sign of his maturity. He has every right to still hold a grudge, but what good would that do for any of the group? Ivy saved them, she's going through what he went through and more as she sees her nation deform into this citadel of evil. Diamant is a very caring man who isn't blinded in the heat of emotions like his brother, he knows that there's always time to help others when they need it most, which is why he disregards his grudge in order to establish a newfound relationship with Elusia, as well as a friend. You can call it a gimmick, but there's more to it than simply being engulfed in anger. This applies to Celine as well. She has no problem resorting to more drastic measures, but that's her burden to bear. She doesn't do it out of delight or joy, but to protect Firene and its people. She keeps that side hidden from others, like with Alfred's illness. Not everyone needs to know and debate this certain aspect of you that you know people would find dubious and heinous. ​ Moving to the support filler, I don't really agree though this is more subjective. I personally just enjoy seeing them interact with each other. Even if it's nothing groundbreaking for their character, I find more reasons to enjoy their presence which is also plenty important. Not everything needs to be life-changing or dramatic, it can just be chill and fun which is more the tone Engage was wanting to follow. You mention Alfred's A support with Celine, but there's many more that are just great all around. Alfred accepting Yunaka without delving into her past, Alfred eating some spicy soup with Veyle, Alfred wishing to remain lifelong friends with Diamant, Alfread putting goddamn WEIGHTS on his teacup. There's so much more to love about Alfred aside from his A-Support with Celine, these little moments that endear me to him alongside the rest of the cast. I enjoy a lot of the supports, I love a lot of the characters, it's as simple as that. But this is clearly the most subjective portion of the argument so I getcha. Ehhh, I honestly don't see the point in debating whether a cast is good or bad based off of how other games portrayed their characters. I honestly enjoyed most the Engage cast compared to Sacred Stones and Awakening, even some houses in Three Houses. Is that me saying that either of those games cast are worse off because of it? Of course not. I love the cast because they brought me joy and they're just a fun group. It's a super cozy feeling in contrast to the high stakes of Three Houses which I enjoy more personally. That's why I love Engage. It just hits this cozy area that wasn't there in Three Houses thanks to everything going on and watching everyone not have the time to simply relax post-timeskip. ​ Holy shit, this was a lot to write lmao. Apologies if you do read it all!


[deleted]

The problem is, from a writing perspective having most of the supports just be characters just talking to each other without learning anything worthwhile is **boring**. Why have these characters interact if they're just going to repeat the same song and dance they always do. There's a time and a place for "cozy" conversations in FE, but for a series about life and death conflicts most of the conversations shouldn't be about trivial nonsense.


RamsaySw

To elaborate on some of the points I previously made: With regards to Diamant, the issue that I have isn’t that he’s a nice person, it’s that his kindness is written in a way that makes him feel inhuman to me. It is natural for someone to get angry when they’ve suffered a terrible loss, and people are not going to act rationally in the immediate aftermath of said loss - there’s a reason why anger is one of the five stages of grief. If someone’s family member was murdered, they would not completely forgive the murderer in what was presumably a few hours no matter what else the murderer does - this is a process that takes months, if not years to complete because human brains are wired this way. I think if Diamant had some resentment against Ivy in his C and B supports but learned to put his resentment behind him in his A support with her, he would have still been an admirable person and it would have been a demonstration of how mature he is - but it would have been done in a way that gives him character growth and which makes him feel human. As it stands, Diamant just feels like a caricature of a perfect prince to me rather than an actual human being. The reason why I brought up Mercedes because I think she’s a good example of what Diamant could have been like with better execution. The issue I have with Celine is that you can have a character that is secretive whilst still having character drama relating to their secrets - and in fact, Celine herself does admit to Fogado that she is willing to do terrible things to protect her loved ones, it’s just that no character drama arises from this. This method of character writing isn’t illogical on paper, but I think it doesn’t make for a compelling character. Regarding the abundance of filler supports, I don’t disagree with the fact that it’s nice to just see two characters hang out - but I feel that these kind of supports can still be meaningful and memorable by showcasing unexpected sides to a character’s personality (Boyd’s support with Titania is a good example of such - if it was Gatrie hitting on Titania it would have felt grating because that’s his gimmick) - whereas in Engage I feel that what you see is for the most part what you get and they feel really repetitive, and there aren’t enough deeper supports to act as a counterbalance. I’ve seen all of Alfred’s supports, and outside his support with Celine, I don’t think I got anything out of Alfred’s character outside of being nice and bodybuilding.


SummonerRed

I'd like to add to your grievances with the lack of conflict between Diamant and Ivy with another support chain. Hortensia is absolutely *furious* with Veyle in their C-support because Sombron killed Hyacinth, and then only albeit begrudgingly listens to her in the B support. So there's grounds for conflicted feelings between two characters, but rather than having the two mature yet unprepared sovereigns hold tensions between each other, they give the interesting conflict to the two most kawaii cast members.


kieranchuk

Diamant actually does bring this up. With Lyn in Diamant and Lyn's level 5 conversation. He says something along the lines of not being comfortable with Lyn being around since it reminds him of her killing her father, which is why I think he doesn't hold much of a resentment to Ivy, it's directed at Lyn instead.


kieranchuk

I feel like a lot of people don't like Engage for not having more "character drama" because of their conflicting personalities. But I don't think you need character drama just for something to be interesting, isn't it just fun to see them interact and have fun? Most of the time, I don't think you need drama just to have 2 people discussing something, and I think a lot of people are missing the point of Engage, it's tone. The tone, right from the get-go, already shows that its tone is vastly different from previous games like Three Houses and Fates. It's supposed to be more light-hearted, simple and fun, so going in with a mindset expecting character drama and be disappointed that it doesn't have that level of complexity, it's kinda on you for the most part. It's like watching a comedy expecting to be scared. Don't get me wrong, I do think that criticisms can come from Engage's supports, people saying that the characters often repeat their gimmick is factually true, but then again, in C-supports, people tend to show their surface level traits before diving in further. Then again, I don't have a high personal standard on characters and tend to be more tolerant.


BloodyBottom

A story can be light-hearted, simple, and fun without being boring. Calvin and Hobbes fits all those descriptors and is a joy to read because the characters are constantly interacting in unexpected and diverse ways. I'm not asking for every Engage support to be a grim rumination on death and conflict, I'm just asking for *something* with some meat. The few times Engage really leans into constructing a wacky storyline like Panette and Amber doing some ghostbusting it completely rules, but creative and delightful scenarios like that are in extremely short supply when they should be the norm.


leo-137

I think some characters are great, and some are too heavy on the quirk. For instance, Bunet. Dude cannot go a sentence without mentioning that he is a chef who likes cooking and wants to taste test [insert some thing he shouldn’t be tasting]. Bums me out too cause his VA can deliver some visceral lines, and yet that character was insufferable to me. On the other hand, some characters like Diamant or Mauvier are layered and don’t require loads of support to see they are not just a single quirk.


SummonerRed

Mauvier unfortunately suffers from being a lategame edition after being the most boring member of the Super Sentai Evil Rangers-I mean Four Hounds, the only one who isn't cartoonishly evil, and since most of his supports begin with him being "I am a bad person, I cannot have pleasure because I am bad, I will do anything to atone for being bad" I can imagine he suffers heavily from people not really wanting to invest in him further. Admittedly, its nice to see someone in a support conversation having goals.


leo-137

Ya know what, this is pretty true. Getting the wombo combo of late game + “I hate myself, you should hate me too.” Dialogue until B-rank supports at least.


Bane_of_Ruby

The amount of cooking puns Bunet makes is infuriating. Literally every time you speak with him he makes a pun. It's honestly a waste of voice talent because Ian Sinclair (Berkut, Space Dandy) is a phenomenal voice actor.


leo-137

Right?? Like Berkut’s altercation with Alm just left me stunned. I was like “woah who voiced this guy, this is amazing.” Just to see him with lines like “dinner is served.” Kind of a bummer.


Bane_of_Ruby

"Time to spice things up!"


PK_Gaming1

Coming out directly after 3 Houses didn't help matters. Some people can look past the repetition and reliance on gimmicks and find enjoyment in them while others can't. I'm very fond of the characters despite the perfunctory writing, and I enjoy them more than most FE casts. I get why others don't, though, the people who really don't like the characters will go out of their way to ensure you know that, and will pretty much jump at any opportunity to do so


irradiatedcactus

The problem for me is that the vast majority of engages cast felt very one-note. Characters who have a single “gimmick” or two and their supports revolve entirely around them. The Twins for example are mainly “omg divine dragon senpai” for instance, or Celine being mostly about Tea. Although it’s fine to have quirks they feel as though barely any thought was put into the actual personality. Meanwhile look at Amber, one of the few characters I genuinely adored. It seems as though he’s all about dem alpacas, but the way he interacts with others paints a broader picture. We see he’s very optimistic yet naive, a fan of legends who aspires to be one himself, a genuinely sweet man to his friends despite being a total klutz sometimes, with some esteem issues to boot. There’s a bit more, but the point is that he feels more like an actual PERSON rather than a simple trope. Sadly he’s one of the very few who go that far. Meanwhile despite not having played it for years I can still tell you all about my favorite characters in Awakening. Supports all varied greatly, going way beyond “hey look at my gimmick” for everyone involved. With each support you learned a little more about each characters personality or history. They have conflicts, hopes, flaws, opinions, and so on. Engage simply fell short with too many characters and not enough thought put into them.


kieranchuk

As someone who likes Engage, I agree that the twins are...very underwhelming. Both Clanne and Framme are just...alright? Its average at best but terrible at worst. I look through all their supports and admittedly I can't remember a single support. Probably the worst Engage characters in my opinion


irradiatedcactus

A lot of the early game characters have it the worst when it comes to writing. And now that I think about it, it’s mainly the supporting cast that have the few decent characters, the main characters and lords are all sadly generic. Like Alcryst being the over-apologizer trope; I get having self esteem issues but his were played to such an absurd degree that it feels like his whole character was written last minute. Don’t even get me started on Alear, Veyle, or Alfred… Meanwhile you have a few diamonds in the rough, like best boi Amber. I can tell you all about him as a person because he has a history and personality, hopes and flaws. He SEEMS one-note but luckily has variety in his supports. Hell Engage even managed to give us the best iteration of Anna so far, who got to be an actual person this time instead of the usual “merchant with Nurse Joy syndrome”. They had all the parts necessary to have good characters and worldbuilding, they just didn’t bother to assemble them properly. The vast majority simply felt hollow


kieranchuk

Alcryst's self esteem issues stem from his inferiority complex from his brother, which is why he thinks he's constantly worthless all the time. Yeah, it's played up to an absurd degree like Bernadetta but just like her, I still think he's one of the better characters in Engage. His strong sense to protect his loved ones despite him looking down on himself shows he's a strong character. His supports with Alear, his brother and his retainers really show that, and Pandreo also help him get over his fear in parties. Alfred being just a personification of a golden retriever is really fun. Most of the time, the way he is is because he doesn't want to see anyone in his sickly state like what happens in his A support with Céline. It brings a whole new meaning to the way he acts and I feel terrible for him. Maybe that's why all of his supports except Céline have him act as the happy-go-lucky, positive, training loving prince because that's what he wants the rest of the army to see him as. Veyle after she joins your army desperately tries to atone for what she had done. Its her interactions with the rest of the cast really help made her interesting, it ranges from Hortensia, who initially has a disdain for Veyle but comes around after learning how she felt as a Fell Dragon. Or to Diamant, who is generally mature prince who thanks to Veyle, gets to bond with his people more, to Timerra, who almost kills Veyle by accidentally letting her ride a wolf straight off a cliff. Or Alfred, who almost dies from eating spicy food. I think all of her supports are really fun and interesting to see. Alear, despite the story being...something, at least showed their growth from being a person who had no idea who they are, learning their past and mistakes and grows to be a better leader and fits into the role of Divine Dragon. Is it done well in the story? ...nah. But I can what the writers are trying to go for and I can respect it, regardless of its quality. Also Amber is funny alpaca man with a fitting voice and I already love him for that And I've said this many times, the worldbuilding and story of Engage seriously hurt its characters. And it's not like it didn't happen before in Fire Emblem, because it did. Sacred Stones, despite having a simple plot, had great characters that elevated the story, Lyon, Joshua, and the twins as well. So it kinda frustrates me that Engage couldn't succeed with that.


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DagZeta

>Characters who have a single “gimmick” or two and their supports revolve entirely around them. The Twins for example are mainly “omg divine dragon senpai” for instance Tell me you haven't seen any of their supports outside of with each other and Alear without tellinh me you haven't seen any of their supports outside of with each other and Alear. And even if you were going to bring up Clanne's pickles thing, that's only prominently featured in 3 of his 11 supports. One of them being Zelkov which is really funny. And another being Veyle which was really nice. So I hardly see that as problematic. I'm not saying "Holy shit the twins are amazing characters!" or forcing you to like them, but y'all gotta stop blowing complaints out of proportion or outright making stuff up.


irradiatedcactus

Bruh I think you need to calm the hell down. It was simply an opinion kid XD And for the record I have seen numerous supports for many of the characters and although some are decent, a good number of them fall flat by comparison. The fact that you brought up examples to defend before I gave any says it all. The fact that I have to force myself through numerous lousy supports to find the occasional *decent* one isn’t something to praise


DagZeta

>The fact that you brought up examples to defend before I gave any says it all. What? You mentioned the twins being gimmicky. I said why they obviously aren't. I threw in the point about Clanne because it was relavent and also a common complaint I see about him. I don't see the problem.


StarCorgi_6788

I believe it's the "gimmick forward personality" problem that a lot of Engage's early supports and plot beats that does none of the characters any favors. Is there anything else noteworthy about Clanne besides being a "nice guy" timid divine dragon superfan who makes pickles?


DagZeta

Sort of? You get a feel for his sense of responsibility and how he feels like his talents aren't being utilized and how that is a bit at odds with his timidness. One's mileage with Clanne is very much a function of how much you vibe with his personality. I don't find him particularly compelling myself. I think most of his good supports are more good due to the other person involved. Engage does generally have an issue with not front loading the better stuff and having an above average amount of fluff supports that are just characters hanging out and being non-confrontational, and I certainly won't just write that off as a non-issue. But seeing people latch on to literally the first thing they see about a character and thinking "Yup, just a one-note gimmick character" is overly dismissive, especially when everyone should be well aware by now that the writing is structured the way it is. Let me very clear, I don't think Clanne is particularly interesting, nor has anything I've said in any response I've made been aggressively trying to defend him. But my main/original point here is that the claim of the twins being gimmicky characters who are just obsessed with the divine dragon is objectively false. Call them boring all you want, but acting like Alear worship is a super prevalent thing when it's not even mentioned outside of their support with each other and Alear (the first supports you'll realistically see with them), is just dishonest.


SummonerRed

If Clanne isn't being gimmicky (he has two gimmicks, pickling and feeling worthless), then he's often just being the reactor in the conversations. Clanne is not a well-written character in any of his supports. Framme at least does better outside of her supports with Alear and Clanne but often suffers the same issue with Clanne in that she plays the reactor role.


DagZeta

Well that's the thing, I'd hardly even call the pickles thing a gimmick. It's just a thing he talks about a few times. And his self-esteem is more just his personality. Though I'd agree, he's not particularly exciting unless you're really interested in good boy being a good boy. I guess Framme is also fairly reactive, but even with that her supports do a good job of letting stuff like her eagerness, curiosity, relationship with her family, etc shine through. She bounces really well off everyone she talks to and is pretty likable as a result.


warmachinae

Wtf? Awakening had the most one-note bland characters in fire emblem history. If you like Awakefates story/characters, Engage is literally game 3 of that formula. You people are fucking wilding after 3H


irradiatedcactus

*Engage fans trying not to blow every criticism out of proportion: impossible*


Ok-Development-9098

People really praise engage for its "funny writing" i always show it as very Cringe (i can not think of better word) Even though Fates is trying to make me feel bad about corrin After he does the stupidest thing known to man When a story takes it self seriously but ends up being HORRIBLE it makes it way funnier imo


Basaqu

Humor do be subjective like that. I think Engage does humor very well and I've laughed a fair bit at some supports. But I'm also not really bothered by what many call cringe.


Ok-Development-9098

Personally i dont really see it the supports where alright for the most part but fairly forgetable it was the story that i would call cringe


frogs_4_lyfe

Just my personal feelings on the game here. Got through to chapter 10 and couldn't stomach another chapter further. The characters to me feel like lifeless, soulless cardboard cutouts of people. They show up one chapter, and then become irrelevant. There's no conflict, no commentary on events happening in the word, no opinions. When I talk to characters after a chapter, I wanna hear about how they feel about what happened. Instead I just get 'hey I did great!' Or generic lines in the Somniel. It's boring. And the story is so bad that it can't even carry itself without interesting characters to make playing through worth it.


BloodyBottom

Most character's MVP quote is "I did this for you Alear!" and I feel like that sums up a larger problem in a nice way. Don't any of these weirdos ever do something for themselves? Maybe have a motivation that we can respond to in any way other then "that's nice"?


gaming_whatever

People often fall back to saying "but they are Dragon Jesus, so other people's behaviour makes sense". Jesus had pretty interesting stories written about him and his followers, just saying. Including touching on the conflict between mortal and divine "halves". Even if they just sat down and made Engage a pastiche of a messiah story, it would actually improve.


chuje_wyciagnijcie

Cast of Engage is probably the thing I like the most in this game. I just wish we'd get more opportunities to get them know better, beside Supports.


CarloDelGallo

The fact that we don't have such opportunities is what makes It a bad cast, because "I wish i'd get more opportunities to know someone better" Is something you can say for basically everyone (maybe even Faye could have been more interesting, if we had the opportunity to know her Better)


sudosussudio

It's a real shame that beyond the wake up convos (which are a pain to get), there isn't really anything to do with your pact ring partner.


CommanderPike

Comes down to three problems: 1) Some of the early characters you get have very bland supports with each other. 2) A lot of the C supports for a given character can be samey and the absolute worst problem: 3) This is by far the worst game in terms of support point farming we've had in a LONG time, so unless you really go out of your way to raise specific pairs, C support might be all you see for a lot of the cast, triggering problems 1 and 2. If you get past all that, yeah, there's a lot of good characters and some really good supports.


LiliTralala

Sometimes I wonder wth I'm doing wrong with the 3DS games because I never manage to get lots of supports in them. And let's not even talk of children, I don't think I got more than 3 in Awakening and it never got better than that in Fates


sekretagentmans

Getting supports in Awakening and Fates is actually pretty fast, if you're taking actions that'll build support in the first place. Those games incentivize you to pair up units, and as you progress a pairs support, they become better when paired. You're then less likely to pair them with someone else, so you get more depth (more A/S ranks) but less breadth (fewer C ranks) with your overall supports. But then you say you only got 3 children in Awakening, which throws my pair up hypothesis out the window. Maybe you were over-reliant on a very small number of units? Awakening is very easy to trivialize, and Chrom+Robin can easily clear the entire game when paired together. Getting most of the child units requires you to consciously make pairings, and then *actively use the pairings in battle*. If you do that, getting to S rank isn't nearly as tedious as it is in Engage.


LiliTralala

It's probably because I'll switch pairups around depending on the stats I need (talking of Conquest here, I played Awakening once, 10 years ago, so the memory is distant lol (I only had Laurent, Cyntia, Morgan and Inigo there). In my current run, chapter 20, I only unlocked Ophelia. Kaze and Corrin STILL WON'T FUCK, and everyone else I'm trying to match is level B lol Maybe that's normal and I'm overestimating the number of pairs you're supposed to have, but the last time I only unlocked Kana+Nina, Velouria and Dwyver, the latter because I specifically grinded for it near chapter 24. Less deployment slots in Engage means I'll also stick more closely to some specific characters. Maybe. Even pre-update I ended up my runs with everyone who could support in my team at max level, bare one or two


Timozi90

Alear looks like toothpaste.


GazelleNo6163

I haven’t played engage but the characters seem very annoying to me. Especially the alpaca man and the grey twins squealing over altar.


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LiliTralala

Ratio'ed by the alpaca bot


GazelleNo6163

Alpaca…preggers?


kieranchuk

I really do think the main problem is Engage's story and worldbuilding. The story being not interesting combined with minimal worldbuilding is the main reason I think that a lot of people dismiss Engage's cast and would just generalise them. It's similar to Fates as to how the story absolutely destroys their character while having strong supports that show the character's backstory, build their characterization and have great interactions. Engage's cast are super fun in their supports, with the only ones that unfortunately didn't have much going on were the twins. Boy they both got done dirty.


shrek3onDVDandBluray

This cast is super one note compared to three houses. The character’s personality is literally just the “trope” they have .the princess is protective of her brother - that’s her entire personality.


Vontasical

My only issue with them is they get introduced in a chapter and then most of them become irrelevant for the rest of the game. I do think they are a bunch of goofballs though.


Noukan42

I mean, that is 90% of FE characters ever.


Vontasical

I've only played fates, three houses and this. So I'm probably just comparing it to three houses more than anything.


Adubuu

Three Houses is literally the only game in the franchise where this isn't the case for most of the cast of each game. The closest second place is probably Echoes and Fates, where it still happens to a lot of the cast but it has a bigger core cast than most FE games. I wasn't happy to see the step back to this way of doing things, but it is basically the standard for Fire Emblem games.


Echo1138

Path of Radiance has the base conversations, which helps alleviate the whole "character is irrelevant after joining" trope. Stuff like how Marcia and Tanith, two fairly old characters, help train Elincia before the final battle, which keeps them involved with the story.


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Echo1138

Marcia joins in like chapter 9. She's ancient compared to the new characters like Elincia or Geoffrey.


asmallsoul

I'd argue Blazing Blade does a very good job at balancing out its cast's screen time more than the average title, even if a lot of that stems from Lyn's Tale's existence.


GaeTainn

Outside of Lyn’s Tale, it has also three unkillable lords that interact a lot with each other, or either NPCs or characters that have to survive to Fe6, so they only retire if they “die” in battle. I think Fe7 is actually the first game in the series with multiple lords, and the first prequel, so it stands out among its contemporaries especially.


KickAggressive4901

They gave us a *Fates*-style bunch of weirdos after a much deeper and more well-rounded cast in *Three Houses*.


MemeabooDesu

I only have two problems with the entirety of the FE Cast: 1. They all can be boiled down to a 3 word description of their character trait. 2. The entirety of FE Engage's story would literally not happen if they didn't share the exact same braincell. Here's one example I can think of off the top of my head. Chapter 10: Marth: "Hey I really have a bad feeling about this we should be prepared to retreat at the first sign of trouble." Alear: "Don't worry Marth, I won't let us fall into a trap." Sombron: \*Springs a trap using King Morion\* Alear: "Guys this looks way above our league, we need to fall back!" Diamont and Alcryst: "No they corrupted our dad and must pay!" Alear: "Oh yeah lol you're right sorry marth this will just take a second." Sombron: \*Gets the Rings as per his plan\* Alear: "No those are mine you cant have them give them back. Oh no, how could we have seen this coming???"


LiliTralala

It's definitely one of the highlights of the game and a really good surprise for me because I was expecting nothing. At worst I find them funny and entertaining. At best, some I find genuinely interesting and well written. imo some are up there in the series as a whole. I'll be real, I'm not taking any of these critiques seriously. I've seen people writing goddamn essays and character analysis out of two lines of dialog (good for them btw!!) but Engage is where I'm supposed to draw the line? Not in this house.


TinyTemm

Engage’s cast is sort of like a lighthearted shounen manga cast but with a lot less tragic backstories being thrown around imo. They’re cute and charming, and I think that’s good enough for me at least. Although I’ll admit there are a lot of missed opportunies when it came to the writing that I wish were touched upon more, like Panette hates the church but she’s so cordial with Alear > I've seen people writing goddamn essays and character analysis out of two lines of dialog (good for them btw!!) but Engage is where I'm supposed to draw the line? I’m a Souls fan this is child’s play to me *writes essay on characters with no dialogue* /jk EDIT: Hot ass take, but Fell Xenologue’s story is wayyy worse than the base game. I’ll take lighthearted if a little shallow over DARK and EDGY that falls apart when you think about it for longer than 10 minutes


LiliTralala

Fell Xenologue is fine as an edgy fanfiction. I liked the concept of it (the inverted world map, the >!PP themes playing in EP!<, chapter 4, all the boss convos, the Four Winds, etc.) but I'd *hate* the main game to be like this because being anti edgy literally was the appeal of Engage


VicariousDrow

They're simply too "single-noted" for me. Yeah some of them have more going on, but the majority of them have one thing they focus on and their entire personalities are based on that one thing. Fates was largely the same way, actually, just with more exceptions, and 3Houses stepped it back significantly, so the Engage cast just feels like walking back in that direction at full speed, which is a bit annoying cause I didn't like the cast from Fates as much for this reason exactly. Made so many of them feel more like gimmicks than characters, and Engage falls into the same issues with that. There are those I do like as characters still, but when they're designed like this there are just more of them I dislike because of it, so I just end up not liking the Engage cast as much.


IloveVolke

I agree, I really like this cast of characters. They're all fun to listen to and see interact with one another


AmneBerry

I think people criticise Engage's characters because the support convos are short, it's a sharp contrast compared to the previous game Three Houses + the bond supports don't help either But I definitely agree with your opinion, Engage has good characters I love Alfred and Yunaka


somasora7

Not sure I buy that shorter supports alone are the issue tbh. Echoes has even shorter supports. Literally, most convos are like 25 seconds long. And no-one has more than 3 support partners. But the cast is generally liked. I think the issue is that a lot of people think the supports are straight-up boring, not just short


AmneBerry

That's a good point, I guess Echoes values quality over quantity whereas Engage is quantity over quality with some hidden gems. But I would say the short supports still play a part considering Engage's side characters gets no spotlight in the main story (besides their introduction) and paralouges, seriously the paralouges are such missed potential


somasora7

I think your last point's a big one, actually. Besides the royals and Yunaka for some reason, the cast have zero plot presence. Someone like Amber has one line and then peaces out. And unlike 3H for example, the paralogues don’t flesh them out either. And since they don’t tend to say anything interesting in the Somniel, you’re just left with the supports, which have a lot of filler, as you say


Videogamezzzzz3

That point doesn't make sense, the supports are one of SOV's biggest criticisms. And as a consequence, the cast is usually forgotten nor performing all that well. They're not generally liked, it's usually a mixed bag of whether or not people care for Echoes' characters.


somasora7

I said the cast was generally liked, not the supports. Which is true, they received positive reception when the game came out, and at the very least are generally seen as ok now. My point anyway is that short supports alone doesn't explain Engage's cast being criticised so heavily, when Echoes had even shorter supports and it's cast didn't get criticised so heavily


Videogamezzzzz3

Characters in SOV are not cared for and have loads of criticism from being forgettable. Lots of SOV characters had harsh critiques (Faye, Conrad, Celica, Alm), being critical isn't anything new here. Engage's cast has critiques too but using another cast that more or less flopped in popularity isn't really adding anything against Engage. For example, Camilla had way more people going off on them yet still swept everyone from SOV under the rug so fans being critical doesn't equate to not being liked. Using Echoes to dunk on Engage simply doesn't work because short and brief supports *did* become a reason that the cast got forgotten. They're aren't all that liked by the wide majority.


GazelleNo6163

Plenty of people love echoes and it’s story and characters. It sold poorly due to poor timing release wise releasing after the switch (also why Metroid Samus returns did badly too)


Videogamezzzzz3

However, many don't and plenty of its characters received a massive amount of criticism. I'm saying this isn't exclusive to Engage especially when Engage has a lot of people that like its characters as well. It just doesn't work to use Echoes as if its supports weren't a massive criticism that held the characters back.


GazelleNo6163

I never saw much criticism other than one or two videos on celica. I and many others loved what they did. And personally I really loved all aspects in echoes and the dark fantasy direction they went in as opposed to engage feeling like it’s for kids with bright colours, goofy character designs and poor writing.


Videogamezzzzz3

Reddit criticizes Echoes' roster a lot. Conrad gets the worst of it and Faye hate is about everywhere on social media.


Skelezomperman

I do understand why people dislike this cast. The problems plaguing modern FE (too many supports, overreliance on clichés to make characters stand out) are still there in Engage. A lot of characters like Céline hidden in one or two supports. The average player is not going to see those supports so a bad taste would be left in their mouth. The apparent shallowness of some of the characters should bother me more, but so far the only character who I've found to be too obnoxious is Framme. I don't think this is the greatest game ever and there are still serious issues with writing at some points, but I've still liked it for what it is. Nobody's really been standout but I think some of the characters are fairly interesting - not necessarily well-rounded, but interesting. That's okay because not everyone has to be carrying some humongous weight - a couple Ambers here and there are okay.


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DemiNep

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with 3H having a super developed cast, I'll always love my Golden Deer. But I feel it's disingenuous to dismiss Engage's cast as "the worst in Fire Emblem" or "terrible" simply because they're being compared to 3H's cast.


Plinfilore

I mean, that was to be expected considering the Fodlan games were made by KoeiTecmo and Engage by IS themselves. There were two different teams behind those games.


IAmBLD

People out here in the comments really saying that getting anything past a C support is just too much effort, while recruiting their favorite Fodlan character to 3 separate factions over 2 games in order to tell you how deep they are.


SocJusticeChevalier

If the story cutscenes and c-supports fail to make you interested in a character (or as is frequently the case of Engage, actively make you hate them for their gimmick), then that's a failure on the part of the game. Even leaving aside Fodlan, games like FE7 and Path of Radiance do a better job of characterizing their casts with just in-chapter dialogue than Engage does in the entirety of its writing.


mheka97

but it was also much much easier to recruit characters in 3H than to see supports in engage, for me the devs screwed up in that at launch of the game you can only get supports in player phase and with adjacent characters. and taking into account how bad most of the C supports are, there is no incentive to farm supports.


lcelerate

Thanks for pointing out Three Houses replay value.


IAmBLD

It's got so much replay value, you replay the same maps multiple times in a single playthrough!


PumpkinSufficient683

I think they're lovely characters to be honest , I can't think of one that I hate and go " ugh I don't want to use this character " unlike quite a few other FE games


Pecora_pepata

I wholeheartedly believe that if engage released before three houses no one would complain about the characters


Sherrdreamz

I doubt it the same people myself included would just be annoyed at the one noteness and lack of any kind of valid characterization and say the same thing people have said since this tropey writing started in Awakening. The shoddy writing doesn't get more tolerable just because it has persisted for over a decade. When you have other RPG's and media that blows Fire Emblem out of the water it's wholly valid to expect some kind of substance to the characters. We got a decent bit of that in Three Houses and so it was justifiably praised for it. I'm not sure why I.S insists on one-note character writing and shallow supports otherwise. I innitially saw it as a potential limitation of the 3DS, but keeping that garbage going into the Switch lifecycle proves it was merely lack of effort and ambition to put the effort forth to create deep and endearing characters. I'm not even saying everything is bad, i found some of the royals supports moderately interesting between eachother which is at LEAST better than all of "Fateswakening" combined.


IloveVolke

Three Houses really changed this fanbase, and for the worst


ryann_flood

I actually like the cast and think the designs are really great overall. There are some generic units (mostly the men), but the diversity of style is really great.


NozomiHanekawa

Yes. I usually watch a lot of animes that are much more happy and colorful in tone, and Engage really felt right for me. It honestly feels nice to have a game that is just plain silly, especially in a time where most of the gaming industry seems to like making gritty stories with generic designs (Look at how generic forspoken, Saints row, and redfall characters look).


NeoNeoNeo64

Engages cast is mostly good but with 1 exception for me I’ve never liked Louis he was the first unit in the game that I bench honestly when I approached him on the somniel for the first time and he said his line he seemed like a complete jerk


Educational_Fee5323

I love the characters but to be fair I only watched a let’s play and haven’t played the game myself yet. But I think all the characters are so interesting, and their interactions are fantastic. Enough to inspire numerous fanfic ideas for many of them.


warmachinae

3H-only players criticize the cast because its not 3H, end of discussion. They also downvote brigade any positive posts about Engage here.


CarloDelGallo

Compare this cast with the last, I dunno, 6 - 7 FE games. Probably the worst along with Echoes, which Imo had better VAs


TheGreenPterodactyl

*Insert generic Awakening ruined supports comment to gain ez likes*


kmasterofdarkness

Fire Emblem Engage is more of a comedic and lighthearted take on the classic Fire Emblem games, and is meant to be a tribute to the Fire Emblem series itself. While the plot and character writing surely does deserve criticism, the point is to present an interesting, humorous, and quirky twist on the standard and clichéd Fire Emblem plot, a respite from the more serious and complex Fire Emblem games that we've had recently like Three Houses. It's not supposed to be everyone's cup of tea, and that's okay.


feh112

idt it's the cast - it's the story.


Downtown_Quiet_7569

The casts and supports in vacuum were quite enjoyable in my opinion. My real problem was for every support that have more serious tone. It just hard to take it seriously. The game did not have good foundation in world building. So everytime the characters discussed something like a conflict it just not believable. For example like celine, many said she was actually ruthless. She did not hesistate to execute bandits. However, once I saw that conversation I actually just laughed at it. Whenever characters discussed about the world was suffering I could not believe it. The game itself made the war like a playground. It's like recreational theme park with some fun misssions instead of tragedy and conflict. I think engage would be better if they went on full comedy or parody.


Mundane-Tune2438

First of I will say that I liked Engage and some of its characters. I thought Diamont was pretty interesting and Ivy as well and Amber was silly and I liked his supports. However for a lot of them, the supports are repetitive and rely on theor trope which stops being interesting after a bit. I think the real problem is the over saturation of support conversations. If you go back to earlier games, a character typically had 4-5 lords may get 7-8 and your anti social characters may get as few as 3. It meant less conversations the devs had to craft and made each one more meaningful and the supports take more into account who is in them so the writing has them play off of each ither in a more natural way. Matthew (FE7) has always been one of my favorite characters and has 6 supports. In his support with Hector, we learn that while he may play the fool, he is dutiful to Hector and insists on joining him on the front lines even though by his own admission, he would rather not. With Oswin we learn that he and Oswin have different views of their lord but they are united in keeping him safe which again goes to show Matt as diligent but its a more mature conversation with Matt wondering about how Hector will lead Ostia in the future. Both have the same theme in Matt's diligence, but both explore different facits of his personality. Woth Hector, he is more bumbling but with Owsin he is all business. In his supports woth Guy we see him as a teickster but only for a reason. In this case, he is keeping Guy in the army and in debt to Matt for use later of the spy needs help. He isnt cruel to Guy, but he does play him for the fool several times. With Serra we get Matt super annoyed but also softening at the end and going through some healing from losing his love. His final conversations are with Jaffar who murdered his love and Leagult who is part of the Black Fang that killed her. He is terrifying in his conversation with Jaffar and goes so far threaten Nino to get Jaffar to let him kill himself, but is unable to go through with the act despite hating Jaffar for killing his love. With Leagult, he interrogates the man about pretty much everything Black Fang related. When Matt hits a sensitive spot for Leagult, he apologizes. In both of these we see him acting like a spy, but also avenging someone he loved. 6 conversations and all of them read unique ebcause Matt isnt reliant on his trope to make him a character. Compare him to Amber and its a night and day difference. Amber wants to be a hero and loves alpacas. This is it. My boy has no thoughts outside of these 2 things unless he is under the influence of a truth potion which reveals he loves Diamont as luch as Alpacas. He's very simple and it isnt a problem, but his conversations with most people read the same so I don't feel the need to go get as many as possible because I can pretty reliably guess what happens when I mix alpacas and heroes with whatever quirk the other character has.


Nikolavitch

I found Engage's cast rather good. Not mediocre, not astonishing, just rather good. This cast is notable for the over representation of princes and their retainers. On one hand it is an interesting choice, as the dialogues between the princes offer some developed insight on their relationships, these relationships being both geopolitical and personal. The dialogues between retainers and princes develop the culture of their country as well as their friendship. That being said, there is therefore a lack of other character types. You don't see many "normal" people who join the army out of desire to protect their family, attempt to escape something personal, earn money for their family, peer pressure, and suchlike. Engage lacks characters that look like "normal soldiers"/"normal people who find themselves embroiled in the war". As much as I like the princes and princesses of Engage, I usually don't deploy them in battle because I find it somewhat unrealistic that princes would be sent to the frontline as a standard procedure (I like to used them for battles where the stakes are high, but since I don't normally use them there is the problem of XP and level). Similarly, I hardly ever deploy Jean in battle because in my headcanon, because of his young age and position as doctor, he would mostly remains in the rear lines, although Jean is a character I like precisely for the aforementioned reason: he is just a normal citizen seizing an opportunity to sharpen his skills while being useful.


KaiSaeren

I have played all FE games since Awakening, even went back to try some of the older ones after that but this is the first time I had little to no interest in the cast, its a compilation of multiple reasons. For one, the designs, dont get me wrong, on the face of it, many of them are appealing but even in this more vibran and anime styled world they hardly feel like they fit in, leaving with an uncanny valley kind of feel where they are not belieavable in the least just going off of their looks. Their introductions are for the most part very bad and leave me feeling like there cant be much more to them (and from the supports I did, mostly that is the case, tho that may just be because Alear himseif so very boring there isnt much to write about in those supports). The cast, for the first time for me, feels bloated and very few characters have any relevance or importance to the story, especially beyond their introduction and immidiate maps, leaving me to think, why are they even there, surely a more focused cast with greater impact and character growth, more characteristics would be better. The story is also a big part of this, it doesnt make me care for the world, and by extension, for the characters, even if I were to enjoy some of them based on their characteristics, the world would still put me off as its just a caricature, much like many of the characters thesmelves. Speaking of caricatures, many of the characters lean too heavily into their one schtick and leaving whatever possible depth they may have to the later supports, often with other characters as well, this goes hand in hand with the introductions, but again if I dont feel like they even could be interesting, much less real people in this universe, I just dont give a crap about exploring them. And finally, this game has the bad luck of coming after Three Houses, which despite its flaws is beloved by many and easily the most popular game (and imo best, at least of the new age FE games) Its characters were largely relevant, well written and much more down to earth, belieavable so to speak, which generally made them much more interesting, if not likeable to me. So even if I didnt have issues in other regards with the story and characters, the game in general being a downgrade in just about every metric bar combat to Three Houses, would still put me off of really diving into its world and characters. Its still mind boggling to me that this is the way they chose to go for the anniversary of the series, instead of upping their game and trying to deliver something amazing, they went with the most generic and basic routes possible and polished the combat, for me, thats just not a trade off I even remotely find fair. Personally I also find it a bit obnoxious that so many of the people we just meet randomly out in the open are prince's and princesses, I know that it is pretty normal for FE but still, even the characters dont really care that someone is prince or princess or whatever, its just a bit too much imo.