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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    My true MVP though is Anna. I took her down a Warrior path because she starts with an axe and, well, it's hilarious. Her magic has actually grown faster than her strength so she caught up there, and she got a ton of Resistance when that's not the sort of stat I'd expect for a Warrior.

    With that combination I stuck Ike on her and gave her a Silver Axe and a Radiant Bow. She needs healing every so often, but apart from that she's a one-woman army.
    Missed this post before. There's a reason your Anna turned out like that: even though she starts in axe fighter, she has the growth rates of a mage. Her natural strength growth is only 15%; her magic is 50%, which is actually the highest of any playable character in the game. Her defense growth (20%) is similarly lower than her resistance growth (35%) - those numbers being almost identical to Citrinne's.

    Basically, if you leave her in her default class line, you'll probably have to hand her the Hurricane Axe and/or Radiant Bow eventually; or you could class-change her to mage and she'll probably be the game's strongest of those. (She also has a 50% natural speed growth, which ties Clanne for best among the game's natural mages and is only 5% lower than the highest speed growth characters in the game.)

    Speaking of the magic weapons though, is anyone else finding them much less useful than in other Fire Emblem games? It feels like physical characters with a decent magic growth rate are very rare. Even Alear doesn't get it; I left my first Levin Sword with mine for a long time, but recently tossed it in the convoy because she just wasn't using it. Her Armorslayer was better against armored foes, and those are the only thing the Levin Sword was even halfway worth thinking about against. I've got Flame Lances on Timerra and Chloe, and they're okay at letting them fight armored units, but not great; if there were an armor-slayer lance, I could see them going the same way as Alear. Fogado is my only unit really getting good use of one with the Radiant Bow. And I don't have anyone who can use the Hurricane Axe to decent effect, all my axe-users have single-digit magic scores (or just barely double-digit in Jade's case).
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-05 at 11:27 AM.
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  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Finished the game today.
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    Yeah, that's pretty much the ending I expected. I mean, okay, the bit about Sombron being from another world was out of left field, but also didn't really matter. There's a few things I could say about the final chapters, such as that trying to humanize Zephia and Griss at the last minute was a bad idea, that the time-travel element to the one chapter seemed gratuitous and unnecessary (and introduces plot holes when you start to think about it), Queen Lumera's second death was even more drawn out than the first, and everything turning into the generic anime "villain who believes in strength as an individual and disdains bonds vs heroes who have the power of friendship" story for the final mission was lame. But there's little reason to dwell on those, the story was never all that good here. Like I've said, it's mostly standard Fire Emblem writing - anime/fantasy tropes, where you just hope the game gives you some characters you like.

    And it does have a few good moments in that regard. Support-wise I did end up with a few notable ones I enjoyed: Yunaka and Seadall, Alear and Citrinne, Alear and Mauvier, just to name those that come to mind first. I was actually pretty disappointed there weren't paired endings for non-Alear characters just because I did want to see Yunaka and Seadall end up together after their support. Didn't care about any of the others, but those two I liked as a couple. I'd also say that, in general, the Firenese characters give a poor first impression of the game's characters. The other nations feel a bit less flat in their characters' personalities (though not all of them). I probably liked the Brodians the best - though they could've stood to tone down just how depressed and self-depreciating Alcryst is. Diamant, Citrinne, and Lapis felt like very relatable characters, and I quite liked Jade as well. Never really got see Amber's personality since I never used him, though (had too many lance-users already when he showed up). I also generally liked the Solmnians, and at least mostly liked Ivy from the Elusians (didn't use any of them besides her, so can't say too much about the rest).

    All that said though, yeah, it doesn't hold a candle to Three Houses, and you could probably give other games the nod for better stories, too. For me personally though it does sort of fade into the same "decent, but nothing special; flawed, but not too badly so" category that almost all Fire Emblem stories end up in.

    Just because it needs to be in the spoiler, one comment about the final fight: I liked the Dark Emblem idea, appropriate for the final battle, but the execution was lacking. All of the villains being nondescript spirits attached to standard enemies that just boost their stats is pretty weak.

    I will say though, if Three Houses didn't exist, this might have an argument for being the best game in the series, just off how fun the Emblem system ends up being to play with. Having that extra layer of customization to the characters, both through who you put the Emblems on and what skills you have each character inherit, is pretty nice.

    Though it does become just as overpowered as it seems. Turns out the game's difficulty curve (on hard) goes: fine in the early game, frustratingly difficult in the mid-game, hilariously easy in the end-game. By the final mission I was steamrolling things. Alear had been untouchable by most enemies for a while due to how fast/dodgy she was from the moment I put Lyn on her, but by that point Chloe (with Marth) was as well, and Yunaka (Corrin), Lapis (Leif), and Timerra (Eirika) were nearly so. Diamant (Ike) wasn't quite the immortal titan that he was in the mid-game, because his resistance just did not keep pace with enemy mages' magic increase, so I had to be careful how many of those I exposed him to even when he was engaged, but he was still one of my strongest units. Jade (Sigurd) and Louis (no emblem) were basically immune to physical attacks from most enemies (even the final boss could barely scratch them!), so as long I didn't let mages attack them first, they were good. And while my mages and other support units could be killed if I was careless with them, Citrinne and Ivy were still crazy good at killing most things safely. Citrinne especially, since she had Byleth, giving her +2 range when engaged, absolutely nutty magic, and enough speed to double anything that weren't swordmaster-tier fast. I haven't felt this powerful at the end of a Fire Emblem since Radiant Dawn, where I legitimately had one character max out all of his stats, and others max out several or most of them.

    Still, I do find myself tempted to replay it, using different units and putting different Emblems on different characters, maybe trying normal difficulty to see how that goes by comparison. But probably not right away, I've got other games to get to first.
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  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Finally finished the game as I got a bit burnt on maddening difficulty. By the end I had made Alear, Boucheron, Diamant and Yunaka unkillable gods. Inherited pair up from corrin and the enemies just suicided on them. Louis unfortunately became too mage averse and was nearly unusable- a shame- particularly because he has the most interesting personality out of the Firenese lot.

    I'd rate the game as follows:

    Story: B standard FE and anime fair it's not bad, it's not good either. There were a few plot twists I didn't see coming
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    Losing your emblems at chapter 11... that hit hard Intelligent systems. You give me nice toys and you take them away?! Rude! And zombie alear- the revival I knew it was coming, but the corrupted one? Didn't see that coming
    .
    Characters: B+ I haven't explored the majority of the cast, but I can't say there were many that I found amazing...might be coz I used mostly firenese character's and they are not great- gym rats and tea enthusiasts. Yunaka easily tops the list, followed by Alear easily my second favorite protagonist after Shez.
    World Building: B- It's there I guess. Nothing creative.
    Art: B some of the fashion choices are interesting. A third of the cast looks like its ran away from the circus.
    Music: A The game has some solid tracks. Solm in particularly Bops. Fates along with Echoes still have my favorite sound tracks though.
    Gameplay: S+ Fantastic. Easily the most creative in the series and it is an absolute joy to see your builds come together.
    Persona Enjoyment: S. I am fan of the series even though this is not the strongest entry in the franchise I still enjoyed my time here.
    Overall: A. Not bad, there are better FEs games for sure, but there worse binding blade and shadow dragon I am looking at you.
    ----
    They have just released three DLC emblems. Will play the game again... but for now my brain needs to rest.
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  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    I rate the game quite a bit lower, personally. I've made it through one playthrough and tried to do a normal ironman (no rewinding) playthrough to see the differences and I'm already burnt out after Chapter 10. Normal difficulty is, as I feared, too easy.

    The gameplay once you're on a map is quite good. I like how challenging it is on hard, despite some things I still don't like (see earlier rant). The lack of batallions and Weapon Skills hurts, making the overall gameplay a lateral move for me from 3 Houses. The design of the maps is a step above though - these are the maps I wished I had for 3 Houses, and the poor map design remains my biggest complaint with that game. I think Fates still keeps the crown for map design, but that's no slight on Engage.

    But the rest of the game is very poorly put together. The story is insultingly bad for most of the game, improving only a bit near the end. Even then, it was pretty predictable. The characters are shallow, with only a handful of good supports. I can't stand Alear, who I think must have repeatedly fallen out of bed onto their head during their 1000 year slumber. The Somniel and explore segments feel soulless, because most characters have nothing of importance to say and going around 30 people after each chapter to try and find out if they have new dialogue is tiresome.

    What really kills the game for me is the between battle prep. Promoting units feels bad because the game is incredibly stingy with Master Seals, only unlocking infinite purchase close to the end of the game (chapter 18 or 19?). Second sealing feels pointless because base classes have no skills, meaning that if you second seal a base class unit you're wasting 10 levels until they can get into the promoted class you actually want. This is to make way for the Inherited Skills system...which only lets you have two skills. Said skills are typically incredibly expensive for the worthwhile ones, which should allow you to save up your points and get the skills. Only the game robs you of all your emblems halfway through the game and doesn't give them back until you're closing in on the end of the game. Actually learning the skills is a chore as you have to bounce back and forth between the Arena and the Ring Chamber as you can't see what SP characters have outside of either battle or the Ring Chamber, and have to go to the Arena to purchase the bond level with a separate currency.

    Smithing involves a separate gacha currency, getting it requires filling your farm yard with dogs (????) and paying money into the countries so you can grind it from skirmishes. Except if you do that too much, you don't have enough money without excessive additional grinding. That's without mentioning the Tower of Trials currency which is ludicrously grindy if you want to improve the Engage weapons.

    There's also miscellaneous stuff, like all the stupid minigames in the Somniel and the lackluster Paralogues. The lack of characterization to the Emblem heroes, despite them being the big draw of the game. But you get the idea.

    ---------

    I've just spent a lot of time ragging on the game, but I want to be clear:

    Engage is about a 7 for me. It's good, but not great. I got a playthrough out of it, and if it were really bad I wouldn't have gotten that far. It sits about where Fates sits for me, and for much the same reasons. The gameplay is good, but there are deeply frustrating elements to the design that sap my enjoyment, especially on a second playthrough. If I could just engage (heh) with the gameplay without dealing with all the stuff in-between, I suspect I would enjoy it a lot more. And I probably will still revisit it at a later date if the DLC looks juicy enough.
    Last edited by Rodin; 2023-02-09 at 04:26 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #65
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    Finally getting into the game now that I'm done with Metroid Prime and a few other titles. So far, enjoying the game but a few things really bug me. The first is the costumes. Holy crap are a lot of them garish and ugly. Second is the UI, which I'm finding particularly annoying. Show me clear paths for classes please, don't nest it behind a option box. In Chapter 8 and also feel like I'm picking up way too many people to really sit and focus on any one of them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    Finally getting into the game now that I'm done with Metroid Prime and a few other titles. So far, enjoying the game but a few things really bug me. The first is the costumes. Holy crap are a lot of them garish and ugly. Second is the UI, which I'm finding particularly annoying. Show me clear paths for classes please, don't nest it behind a option box. In Chapter 8 and also feel like I'm picking up way too many people to really sit and focus on any one of them.
    Eh, having played the full thing, I think most of the designs are fine, it's just that the few that aren't are really bad. And the fact that the main character is one of the worst examples of that does it no favors, since you're stuck looking at them plenty. Especially the male version - somehow those pants and the weird suspenders attaching his boots to his overcoat make everything worse, where the female version's skirt is at least relatively normal looking.

    (On that note, I just started a second run after finishing Forspoken, picked the male version of Alear this time, and could only come up with one appropriate name for him: Bozo. Also, his voice is surprisingly effeminate. Nothing wrong with that mind you, but I find it kind jarring at times. Even Alfred's voice sounds more masculine.)

    As to the UI, if you mean the menu layouts, I'm with you. Why is there no way to look at character stats besides going into inventory management? Why do I need to go to the convoy to check item stats rather than just the totals they modify my stats to? Why does Emblem ring management need to be its own section separate from the rest of your character management options? Definitely a lot of poor design choices there. In-battle though I think the UI is pretty well done.

    As to the character quantity, yeah, we're back to the series drip-feeding a couple of new characters at you basically every chapter for most of the game again. That's another thing I miss about Three Houses' unusual format compared to the series norm, personally, character recruitment was so much nicer there. I've got a team I want to use planned out for my new run, but since I'm trying to use as many characters that I didn't last time as I can, a lot of them don't even show up until the mid-game, so I have to use earlier characters as filler for now... damn Boucheron being the only axe user for so long...
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Replaying the game as well on maddening and this run, unsurprisingly, is going a whole lot better then my first run... I have more money then I know what to do with.

    Use Anna peeps she will solve your money problems and please turn her into a magic user of your choice.

    My one complaint is that we need more master seals/second seals in the early game to allow the flexibility of the game to really shine. Hopefully they get added as a freebie down the line.
    Last edited by Rising Phoenix; 2023-02-16 at 04:44 AM.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post

    My one complaint is that we need more master seals/second seals in the early game to allow the flexibility of the game to really shine. Hopefully they get added as a freebie down the line.
    This is my my other major complaint. I'm on Chapter 9 and I really want to do the Skirmishes but I sorta feel like if I do, I'm just wasting levels without any access to Seals.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post
    Replaying the game as well on maddening and this run, unsurprisingly, is going a whole lot better then my first run... I have more money then I know what to do with.

    Use Anna peeps she will solve your money problems and please turn her into a magic user of your choice.

    My one complaint is that we need more master seals/second seals in the early game to allow the flexibility of the game to really shine. Hopefully they get added as a freebie down the line.
    I am using Anna as a Mage this time, though personally I haven't had her ability trigger that much yet. Maybe you're just further along than me though, I've only had her up and running for a few chapters, and just did 11 last night.

    Seal availability is weird too, yeah. Especially with how many early game characters you probably want to class change if you intend to use them. Celine needs to be in a different class to up either her strength or magic growth to remain usable past the early game*, Anna wants to change into a magic class, Jean might want to change class just because he's an aptitude kid, Etie might need a class change to sword fighter or another higher speed growth class, Clanne wants to be in a physical class instead of mage if you want to use him long-term, and you might even want to try it with Alfred. Basically everyone but Framme, Chloe, Louis, and Yunaka who comes in pre-Brodia could benefit from a class change.

    Except Boucheron, he's just kind of screwed unless he gets lucky - seriously, who's the genius who decided he should get 20% strength growth and 0% magic growth? Being an axe fighter is really his only option, nothing else helps those awful growths even close to enough. Dude's Rinkah 2.0.

    *On that subject, my weirdest reclass for my new run: Celine as an Armor Knight/General. Like Anna, I'm only a few chapters into it, but seems promising so far.

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    This is my my other major complaint. I'm on Chapter 9 and I really want to do the Skirmishes but I sorta feel like if I do, I'm just wasting levels without any access to Seals.
    Eh, the skirmishes aren't particularly fun, IMO. They all just throw you onto the map with a bunch of enemies who all rush you immediately, so you just turtle up in whatever defensible position you have and try to survive. That's only fun when it's a rare exception to your usual gameplay, at least for me.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-16 at 11:11 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post

    Eh, the skirmishes aren't particularly fun, IMO. They all just throw you onto the map with a bunch of enemies who all rush you immediately, so you just turtle up in whatever defensible position you have and try to survive. That's only fun when it's a rare exception to your usual gameplay, at least for me.
    I like low/no stake combat and the grind.
    Last edited by Razade; 2023-02-16 at 07:46 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    I like low/no stake combat and the grind.
    Fair enough. That's not for me, though.

    I'm getting into the mid-game of my run now, and oof, it's worse the second time around. I'm coming to really hate them for throwing so many promoted enemies into the mix so early. Even using several of the pre-promotes that join you at this point this time, they're still ridiculous in just how many of them there are and how strong they are compared to other enemies. If the game would let me turn the difficulty back up later, I'd gladly turn it down to normal for these chapters. But since for some reason they'll only let you turn the difficulty down, never up (seriously, the hell is with that?), I'm avoiding that for now, because I don't want the late-game to be easier than I already found it the first time.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Fair enough. That's not for me, though.

    I'm getting into the mid-game of my run now, and oof, it's worse the second time around. I'm coming to really hate them for throwing so many promoted enemies into the mix so early. Even using several of the pre-promotes that join you at this point this time, they're still ridiculous in just how many of them there are and how strong they are compared to other enemies. If the game would let me turn the difficulty back up later, I'd gladly turn it down to normal for these chapters. But since for some reason they'll only let you turn the difficulty down, never up (seriously, the hell is with that?), I'm avoiding that for now, because I don't want the late-game to be easier than I already found it the first time.

    I am actually finding the game to be much easier now that I know what I am doing. I can comfortably tank bosses and go after genuine clean ups. Even on Sigurd's paralogue I killed basically everything (there's one healer way back with which I didn't bother).

    Oh and hot tip of chapter 17:

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    Use engaged Corrin on Zephia...she won't be able to move afterwards which completely gimps her


    The problem I am honestly having is that I don't have enough metal to forge. Once you get Anna rolling you can easily get an extra 2-4 k gold per chapter from her passive. More if you feed her everything but its a bad idea to do that.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post
    I am actually finding the game to be much easier now that I know what I am doing. I can comfortably tank bosses and go after genuine clean ups. Even on Sigurd's paralogue I killed basically everything (there's one healer way back with which I didn't bother).
    I'm getting some of that too - certainly up through chapter 11 - but when the mid-game hits in chapter 12+ and enemies are just inflating their stats faster than I am, especially on the promoted ones that rapidly become a decent chunk of the enemy force, it's extremely frustrating and makes playing those chapters unpleasant. And I don't want to just promote all of my units ASAP because waiting until they hit level 20 (total, for reclasses) worked out perfectly the first time for avoiding needing to use second seals to just level reset, as my army was all hitting promoted 20 during the final chapter.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post
    The problem I am honestly having is that I don't have enough metal to forge. Once you get Anna rolling you can easily get an extra 2-4 k gold per chapter from her passive. More if you feed her everything but its a bad idea to do that.
    That would require Anna to be killing 4-8 enemies per map if her skill triggered 100% of the time, which it very much doesn't. With the actual trigger rate of luck%, you're either getting very lucky, or feeding her most of the maps. I've still only gotten it a few times total myself, even though I sometimes go out of my way to give her extra kills in the hopes of triggering it. I feel like I can only hope she'll eventually average generating 1k per map, if promotion pumps her luck stat enough.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-17 at 11:16 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    I'm getting some of that too - certainly up through chapter 11 - but when the mid-game hits in chapter 12+ and enemies are just inflating their stats faster than I am, especially on the promoted ones that rapidly become a decent chunk of the enemy force, it's extremely frustrating and makes playing those chapters unpleasant. And I don't want to just promote all of my units ASAP because waiting until they hit level 20 (total, for reclasses) worked out perfectly the first time for avoiding needing to use second seals to just level reset, as my army was all hitting promoted 20 during the final chapter.


    That would require Anna to be killing 4-8 enemies per map if her skill triggered 100% of the time, which it very much doesn't. With the actual trigger rate of luck%, you're either getting very lucky, or feeding her most of the maps. I've still only gotten it a few times total myself, even though I sometimes go out of my way to give her extra kills in the hopes of triggering it. I feel like I can only hope she'll eventually average generating 1k per map, if promotion pumps her luck stat enough.
    There is zero reason to stay pre-promote as you will not get reduced exp if you do promote. You will also gain increased stat gains once you do. TLDR promote ASAP.

    My Ana had 30 Luck by chapter 11. If you have the DLC you can get the skill HP and Luck +6 from her for a measly 600 SP. You can also give her luck tonic as well. Towards mid game were your easily facing off 30-50 enemy units feeding her around 10 kills per map is not unreasonable. Some of the paralogue's have a lot/infinite reinforcements. If you can farm these you can get infinite gold in theory as she can proc it even of void curse enemies.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Fair enough. That's not for me, though.
    Ok? I didn't say you should? I'm not really sure what we're discussing here? I got they weren't for you when you said they weren't for you the first time.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post
    There is zero reason to stay pre-promote as you will not get reduced exp if you do promote. You will also gain increased stat gains once you do. TLDR promote ASAP.
    The growth rate increases from promoting are too small to bear consideration in most cases - most just go up by 5% in a few stats from the unpromoted class. Sometimes more if you're not doing the obvious promotion route, but then it usually also loses a bit elsewhere.

    And I gave my reason not to promote immediately. If I do, I'll need second seals at about the time I'm normally hitting promoted level 10, or else my characters will stop leveling (aside from Seadall and my Thief). That's a lot of money I can just not need to spend by letting characters go to 20 unpromoted, resulting in them hitting the level cap at about the time the game ends anyway, based on my first run. Which really makes it feel like that's what was expected by the developers.

    (Or we could've just not had this silly 20 level cap that resets when you promote or change classes thing at all, like Three Houses, in which case there wouldn't be an issue. It's really something how many little things Three Houses changed about the series' gameplay that turned out to be for the better, IMO.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Rising Phoenix View Post
    My Ana had 30 Luck by chapter 11. If you have the DLC you can get the skill HP and Luck +6 from her for a measly 600 SP. You can also give her luck tonic as well. Towards mid game were your easily facing off 30-50 enemy units feeding her around 10 kills per map is not unreasonable. Some of the paralogue's have a lot/infinite reinforcements. If you can farm these you can get infinite gold in theory as she can proc it even of void curse enemies.
    I don't have the DLC, so that's not a thing I can do (though now that I've gotten Byleth I can given his Luck+ to her). Luck tonic I didn't think of admittedly, I tend to just ignore those one-time consumables. That number of enemies strikes me as quite high though; 30, sure, I can see that for larger chapters in the mid-game, but 50? Maybe in some paralogues or late-game maps where they throw tons of reinforcements at you, but not in the mid-game chapters. Maybe that's a difference between hard and maddening.

    For reference, my Anna, at effective level 20 (5 Axe Fighter -> 15 Mage) and without Byleth's skill yet, has 11 luck. At chapter 16. That'll go up when I promote her and give her Byleth's skill, but still.
    Edit: Or it would go up when I promote, if I weren't locked out of promoted classes other than Mage Knight until later chapters... damn it, I forgot about that... so I'm just getting Byleth's Luck+6.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-17 at 05:39 PM.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    At Chapter 16 and so far...I'm not having as much fun as I had with Three Houses. Not that I'm not having no fun but I don't feel any real connection to the characters and I don't feel like my investment in units is actually all that important. Most of them have Lord classes and those seem just flat better than any other, am I wrong here? Three Houses just felt like I was actually building characters. The Emblems seem to be the most important thing here, which I get is the central mechanic but it really makes the main people...flat as far as units go. Might honestly do a run of Three Houses after this.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    At Chapter 16 and so far...I'm not having as much fun as I had with Three Houses. Not that I'm not having no fun but I don't feel any real connection to the characters and I don't feel like my investment in units is actually all that important. Most of them have Lord classes and those seem just flat better than any other, am I wrong here? Three Houses just felt like I was actually building characters. The Emblems seem to be the most important thing here, which I get is the central mechanic but it really makes the main people...flat as far as units go. Might honestly do a run of Three Houses after this.
    From what I am reading some of the lords, even alear are better of reclassed. Of course if you are playing on hard it's not going to show us much. With the exception of Alcryst, Timera, Hortensia and Ivy all the other lords can/should be reclassed if you wish. Alfred in particular appears to be mediocre at best even if reclassed to Paladin. I've heard that Draco Knight Alear is insane.

    The emblems are good, but you still need to be clever about how you use them.

    As for the characters. Yeah they are not the best. Citrine is another stand out for me. Chloe, Alcryst and Celine have decent writting as does Diamant. But again they are no Sylvain, Felix, Dorothea etc...
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    At Chapter 16 and so far...I'm not having as much fun as I had with Three Houses. Not that I'm not having no fun but I don't feel any real connection to the characters and I don't feel like my investment in units is actually all that important. Most of them have Lord classes and those seem just flat better than any other, am I wrong here? Three Houses just felt like I was actually building characters. The Emblems seem to be the most important thing here, which I get is the central mechanic but it really makes the main people...flat as far as units go. Might honestly do a run of Three Houses after this.
    I get that. While Engage is certainly a good, fun game in its own right, coming out after Three Houses raised the series' bar, it definitely falls short of that in a lot of ways, chief among them the writing. There's individual characters that I like better than most, but for every Citrinne or Yunaka you have three that are pretty meh - or worse, people like Framme or Hortensia who are actively annoying. And even the best in this game don't measure up to Three Houses' characters.

    That said, I think your assessment of the nobles is quite off. In my experience, those go:

    Alfred - Is not good in his default class unless you get lucky growths. I tried to use him in both of my runs - even tried to prop him up with Lyn for a while in my second - and wound up benching him both times. Maybe a class change can save him, but I would not try his default class again.

    Celine - is a fine early game mage, but needs to class change long-term, because her strength and magic growths in her default class are too low. I made mine an Armored Knight/General in my second run, and that's gone well, despite some very weird luck on level-ups.*

    Diamant - does well in his default class line, especially if given Ike, but not necessarily better than he could do in another physical class. Sol's a nice skill, but he doesn't trigger it often.

    Alcryst - can do well in his default class, mostly because Luna helps offset his biggest weakness, his lacking strength. I could see a class change that just fixes that strength issue working out for him though.

    Ivy & Hortensia - they get to be flying mages. Yeah, hard to see why you'd class change them from that.

    Timerra - her Sandstorm ability is amazing, but like Luna on Alcryst it's also making up for her biggest flaw, lacking strength, so you might prefer to just change her to a class that helps with that instead.

    Fogado - eh, he's good for most of the game, but has a similar problem to Celine where his strength and magic growth in his default class are both not great. He just doesn't fall far enough behind that you consider benching him until almost the end, so it kind of works out. I expect a class change to help would be good for him though.

    *Aside: that weird luck being that she's gotten somewhat less defense than her growth rate would mean she should, while for some reason, she has constantly gained build. Seriously, base build stat for a General is 10; my Celine has a build of 18 (at ~ level 30). And that's before the bonus she gets for having Sigurd equipped. It doesn't matter at all, it's not like she doubles anything that isn't another General, but she just keeps gaining it so much more than her 15% growth rate should.

    Other random notes/thoughts from my current run, while I'm posting:
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    - The annoying mid-game difficulty spike dips down after chapter 17, I'd say. Still, the period from chapter 12-17 to me is pretty unpleasant because of that, at least on hard. I guess I need to try normal sometime, but I fear the rest of the game will be too easy on that difficulty.
    - Corrin on Alear is kind of fun - lets you pick between any of the terrain effects Dragon Vein can produce. But I think I personally prefer a more direct combat Emblem, like Lyn from my first run, for Alear. Just like my main character in more of a lead-the-charge role rather than a support one. Has helped me appreciate non-fog effects from Corrin though, especially fire.
    - Most of the characters I've tried using that I didn't the first time are working out. Alfred's the only one I've had to bench. Replaced him with Goldmary, who I changed into a Great Knight because I saw her growth rates looked like an armored unit's, and that's been effective (although I'm not a fan of her character... reminds me of Camilla).
    -- Zelkov and Pandreo have been kind of mediocre. Not sure if that's luck or just how they are. Good enough to keep using, unlike Alfred, though.
    -- I tried making Yunaka an Archer/Sniper, and it has not worked out as well as I'd hoped. She's avoiding being benched, but only just. Shockingly, it hit her speed hard, and despite her high growth rate I've had to have her inherit Speed+ from Lyn to prop it up. And the extra strength growth has only helped her there so much. I might wanna just leave her as a thief in any future runs.
    --- I did give her Byleth though, and quite like that. Failnaught is great, and instruct/dance giving speed+5 is sick. Byleth on a covert unit is a thumbs up from me.
    -- Anna has not been as strong as I'd expected, honestly. I think part of it is bad luck on level-ups, mine does have a statistically sub-par speed for her level, but still, I was expecting her to eclipse Citrinne from my first run, and she really isn't. Factoring in that I haven't given Anna an Emblem where I did give Citrinne Byleth, they're probably about on par with each other. Which is still good, mind you, but from her growths, I was expecting better.
    -- I randomly got a Claude S bond ring, which gives the ability Wind God: +1 range with bows when at full health. Slapped it on my bow knight Etie, and it's kind of nuts. Getting to be a Three Houses archer in a game where no one else does is quite powerful.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-23 at 11:25 AM.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    When it comes to character building, I feel like the way the classes are set up is to blame.

    Both Awakening and Fates rewarded going through the base and the advanced classes. Reclassing into another first tier class got you an immediate skill. Hitting level 10 in the Base class netted you another, and allowed you to promote. The advanced classes had skills at level 5 and 15, but the level 15 skill wasn't always worth sticking around for.

    With 5 skill slots (and inherited skills from parents) you were constantly mapping where you wanted to take characters. Even if a character started as their ideal class it was often better to detour through a couple of secondary classes and then come back to that class when you were ready to settle in. You were also balancing that consideration with the characters stat growths - is it worth taking a mage through a non-mage line to pick up a useful skill? Is it worth taking a parent through a horribly non-optimal line in order to get a skill that would be difficult (or impossible) to acquire for the child?

    Engage strips all of that out and puts it on the Emblems. Base classes have no skills and serve no purpose other than giving the requirement to promote. Advanced classes only give one skill, and you don't get to keep that skill if you reclass.

    The result is that you decide what class each character is going to be the instant you get them. You change to a different class line at most once, and after you promote there's no benefit to swapping to another class unless your stats for your chosen class prove unsatisfactory.
    -------

    My overall experience was that I was very disengaged from character planning, which is a large part of what drew me to the games in the first place. If you needed a skill, you saved SP and got it from an Emblem. Many of those Emblems are taken away from you halfway through the game and not given back to you until much later, limiting the options further. And even at that, the inherited skills were limited to two.

    I think the idea was that you would use the Emblems themselves for the cool skills without inheriting them, and that swapping them freely would provide versatility. In practice, I found it robbed units of their individuality. There were a few standouts with weird growths (Anna being a prime example) but there was little distinction between most of the non-noble characters. There was no reason to ever use Framme if Jean is available.
    Last edited by Rodin; 2023-02-23 at 05:15 PM.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    When it comes to character building, I feel like the way the classes are set up is to blame.

    Both Awakening and Fates rewarded going through the base and the advanced classes. Reclassing into another first tier class got you an immediate skill. Hitting level 10 in the Base class netted you another, and allowed you to promote. The advanced classes had skills at level 5 and 15, but the level 15 skill wasn't always worth sticking around for.

    With 5 skill slots (and inherited skills from parents) you were constantly mapping where you wanted to take characters. Even if a character started as their ideal class it was often better to detour through a couple of secondary classes and then come back to that class when you were ready to settle in. You were also balancing that consideration with the characters stat growths - is it worth taking a mage through a non-mage line to pick up a useful skill? Is it worth taking a parent through a horribly non-optimal line in order to get a skill that would be difficult (or impossible) to acquire for the child?

    Engage strips all of that out and puts it on the Emblems. Base classes have no skills and serve no purpose other than giving the requirement to promote. Advanced classes only give one skill, and you don't get to keep that skill if you reclass.

    The result is that you decide what class each character is going to be the instant you get them. You change to a different class line at most once, and after you promote there's no benefit to swapping to another class unless your stats for your chosen class prove unsatisfactory.
    -------

    My overall experience was that I was very disengaged from character planning, which is a large part of what drew me to the games in the first place. If you needed a skill, you saved SP and got it from an Emblem. Many of those Emblems are taken away from you halfway through the game and not given back to you until much later, limiting the options further. And even at that, the inherited skills were limited to two.

    I think the idea was that you would use the Emblems themselves for the cool skills without inheriting them, and that swapping them freely would provide versatility. In practice, I found it robbed units of their individuality. There were a few standouts with weird growths (Anna being a prime example) but there was little distinction between most of the non-noble characters. There was no reason to ever use Framme if Jean is available.
    Personally, that's an area where I prefer Engage to Awakening/Fates. Changing character classes repeatedly for the sake of skills is not something I ever wanted to do - it just feels so weird and artificial. I want to be able to change the character's class, yes, but I want to decide "this time I want Merrin to be a Wyvern Rider," put her in Wyvern Rider, and be that for the whole game (she makes a very good one, btw). Being able to inherit skills from the Emblems, and decide which combination of Emblem skills and actual Emblem I want on each character works much better for me. It feels like I'm customizing my abilities rather than being schizophrenic about what class my character actually is for most of the game. Though the numbers on how much SP some abilities cost, or how quickly you gain them, could stand to be adjusted.

    And the characters are still plenty individualized, each has their own different stat growth rates which help define where they'll excel and where they won't. Though admittedly there's some real head-scratcher decisions among some of those growth rates, like very few of the physical characters having any magic growth rate to speak of so there's few good uses for the game's magic weapons, or Clanne having a 10% magic growth and 35% strength growth despite starting as a mage.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Wrapped up my second run. Just some thoughts to share afterward.

    A repeat viewing really doesn't do anything for the story - if anything, it gets worse, even if only because the twists really aren't the sort that bring much to the story beyond simply surprising you. Can't say that the different characters I tried revealed many new favorites either - I rather liked Pandreo's supports I'd say, but everyone else, eh.

    I also couldn't help but notice that my interest in playing the game really waned in the last handful of chapters. I get the impression that I have more fun planning out and building up a team in this game than in actually playing out the stages, so once the team was pretty much endgame-ready, my enjoyment started to decline. Which isn't great. Combined with the story, it really makes me feel like the next time I have an itch to play Fire Emblem, I'd be much better off doing another run of Three Houses.

    There are a handful of things that this game does do that I'd say are better than Three Houses, though, and which I hope carry over to future games:
    - Voiced protagonist. I said this with Three Hopes too, but it bears repeating: it helps so much to have this. Even if Alear story is so much worse than Byleth, they feel so much more like an actual character. This is probably my biggest criticism of Three Houses.
    - Animations. Damn, but fights look cool in this game. Dodging animations especially, and counter-attacks right after dodges, are so well-done - I love how some of them are visually more like a parry than a dodge, depending on the character. Critical hits look better than they have since the GBA days, too.
    - Having there be a full-size version of each stage's map so that you can have the background during fights match the stage around you fully is a great touch that the series is long overdue for.
    - The Emblems themselves are a cool concept and fun to play with, so I wouldn't be opposed to them recurring (though not every game, please). Don't return to this world when doing so though, it's really not worth it.
    - Some of the things they have in the Somniel that weren't in the Monastery are nice. The workout and Wyvern Riding mini-games, or the support-building options they added in an update. I'd be happy to see those type of things return.

    In case anyone would be interested, a few of the oddball character/class combos I tried in this run and how they worked out:
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    Celine as a Sword General (Sigurd) - I've mentioned this a few times, but this combo did work out pretty well. I'd say Celine was never as durable a tank as Louis or Jade were on my first run, but she was plenty good enough to hold her own anyway. And with how much build she gained I probably should've made her a lance or axe General instead of sword, but I wanted to stick with that after my initial choice. Sadly though, since her innate weapon is only tomes, she does not get to use the S rank swords at the end of the game.

    Yuanaka as an Archer/Sniper (Byleth) - Unimpressive. Turns out that when you go from Thief to Archer, you lose a lot of speed, and I do mean a lot. Without some lucky level-ups, she needed serious help to be salvaged - which I gave her in the form of Speedtaker and Speed+ from Lyn as her skills. That got her to usability, but if it weren't for Byleth, she'd have still been inferior to my Bow Knight Etie. Byleth on a Sniper/covert unit in general I can definitely recommend though: rally speed, Goddess Dance gives +5 speed, and Failnaught as a powerful range 2-3 bow with effective: dragon, all great stuff.

    Goldmary as a Great Knight (Ike) - As good as Louis in raw defense, and notably better than him in resistance (although she still doesn't get a ton of that, mind you), she might be the best armored unit in the game. She is notably lower strength than Louis or Jade though, so she did less killing for me than them, but very little could threaten her.

    Merrin as a Sword & Lance Wyvern Knight (Marth) - Very well-rounded and strong. Even when she wasn't using her Lucina-engraved weapon enemies often had next to no chance to hit her, and she did plenty of damage even using mostly swords. She's also the rare physical character with enough magic to use a Levin Sword. Basically, she was like a stronger version of Griffon Knight Chloe from my first run, who was already very good. Possibly my most effective reclass here.

    Kagetsu as a Warrior (Eirika) - Very strong by the end, but kind of mediocre at first, honestly (if still leagues better than Boucheron). He's quite good at crits though, so giving him a Killing Axe helped carry him through to the point where he became a beast.

    Anna as a Mage Knight - Not bad, but so much less impressive than I'd expected. By the end she was eclipsed by Pandreo (switched to Sage so he could use the S-rank tome) in every way. With her growths I'd figured she was guaranteed to be the game's best mage, but I guess not. Even with Luck+ from Byleth, never really got the point of getting me all that much extra gold, either - it just wasn't consistent.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-02-27 at 08:05 PM.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Finished my first play through. The writing got decent at the end, why oh why did they not have that writing from the start? Still feel like Three Houses is the stronger of the two games both with cast, general class layouts and other content, but it was a fun game that really only dragged by the end when it was clear there was no real reason to grind. Beat Sombron in two turns on the first map and another 2 turns on the second which was a real shame. Was expecting something a lot more difficult, maybe I'll crank the difficulty up when the other DLC Emblems come out but I fear that'll just be stat bloat.

    I also feel like they overcorrected on enemy archers in this game. Flying in Three Houses was OP but I never felt like I could send any of my flying units into the thick of things in Engage with how soft they all were and how many gosh-darned enemies with bows there were. There also seemed like a ton of enemies with ranged weapons in general.

    The maps overall were really fun, probably the only thing I felt they did better with in this game. Good variety and a few of the last maps were interesting and engaging. The one with the avalanches was a blast even if a little frustrating.

    The Emblem system was interesting up until it wasn't and boy did that wall hit quickly. The price for unlocking inherited skills is absurd and only to inflate the post-game stuff and I have 0 interest in that. I changed emblems around a lot but I honestly feel like that was the wrong choice. I also felt like a few of the Emblems were just not that great? The Twins Emblem especially felt...not very good? What was I missing there?

    I'd give the game a 7/10 overall. Not enough to make me disown the series, it's only my second game of it, but certainly enough to make me see what the next installment is going to look like. On to Tactics Ogre until the Suikoden remakes land.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    Finished my first play through. The writing got decent at the end, why oh why did they not have that writing from the start?
    Really? I felt much the opposite, personally.
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    The twist with Alear's death, return as a Corrupted, and then resurrection as an Emblem was surprising, but just that, nothing more. For all practical purposes all it amounted to was an excuse to add the Engage+ mechanic to the game, which is pretty overpowered.

    Trying to humanize Zephia and Griss on their literal deathbeds, only a chapter after Zephia murdered Marni, a child, in cold blood for turning on her, was a terrible idea. The best those two could hope for was "villains you love to hate" status, and while they weren't exactly there, trying to go the complete opposite direction with them at the last minute was an awful call.

    The time-travel chapter was just dumb and introduces plot holes, all for the sake of giving you a glimpse at what Alear was like a thousand years ago, when you could pretty much figure that out on your own.

    Lumera's second death was even more drawn out and melodramatic than the first. It could maybe have had a point if Alear had reacted more like they should have to her first death, a bit detached because they don't really know her and only have her word that she's their mother, but had a much stronger reaction the second time after developing all these stronger relationships with people who knew her better and feeling that lack of a parental connection, but that's not how they did it.

    And the final chapter stuff with Sombron was just lame. They turned him into a generic anime villain that believes in individual strength and disdains working with others, while also giving him that Emblem he cared about for some reason, as if they also wanted to make him sympathetic in some way. It did not land with me at all, it just made him an even weaker villain than he was to begin with IMO.


    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    The Emblem system was interesting up until it wasn't and boy did that wall hit quickly. The price for unlocking inherited skills is absurd and only to inflate the post-game stuff and I have 0 interest in that. I changed emblems around a lot but I honestly feel like that was the wrong choice. I also felt like a few of the Emblems were just not that great? The Twins Emblem especially felt...not very good? What was I missing there?
    There's definitely a couple of Emblems that are on the weaker side, though Eirika and Ephraim is not one of them. Their Emblem is kind of a generalist one: it raises your damage and reduces incoming damage when in Eirika mode, raises your damage and gives you free healing in Ephraim mode, and does all of that when engaged. Eirika mode's ability that gives you bonus damage based on enemy defense is particularly great, helps lower-damage characters significantly in dealing with higher-defense opponents, while higher-damage characters can take more advantage of Ephraim mode's heal-on-hit effect. Its final engage weapon having Effective: Corrupted makes it great against most enemies during main story missions, too.

    In general, I'd rank the Emblems (not counting DLC since I don't have it) like so:

    The Best: Lyn and Ike.
    Strong: Marth, Eirika, Corrin, Byleth.
    Good: Celica, Sigurd, Leif, Roy.
    Situational: Micaiah.
    Meh: Lucina.

    Lyn and Ike I imagine need little explanation. Lyn basically gets all the best stuff, and Ike makes anyone with decent defense into an amazing tank.

    Marth gets a good engage attack, gives you bonus attacks during normal attacks, and makes anyone better at dodging, which a lot of characters want to be good at in this game. Eirika I explained above. Corrin and Byleth are more depedent on what you put them on, but on the right units, they're excellent - Corrin probably most wants to be on Covert or Mystical unit (or Dragon, since then you get access to all of the Dragon Veins), but can work pretty well on almost anyone due to how good her debuff and immobilizing abilities are. Byleth I've found excellent on a mystical unit (+2 range when engaged!) and strong on a Covert one (Failnaught is a great weapon, and it means rally and Dance give +5 speed), and I could see him being good on select other units, but you do have watch out for traps like putting him on a Backup unit that has no magic and thus won't get any use out of Blutgang. Regardless of who he's on though, Goddess Dance is amazing and OP.

    The "good" tier Emblems are solid, but nothing crazy compared to their fellows. Celica looks amazing in the early game because Warp Ragnarok does so much damage, but it falls off when you get her back in the late-game, and her better ability ends up being Echo, and maybe her Effective: Corrupted tome. But there's few Emblems for mages, so she has that niche at least. Sigurd's mobility boost and Engage special are pretty good, but a bit too situational for me to rate him higher. Leif grants Build+, which can make a big difference on some characters, and Quadruple Hit can be a pretty strong engage attack, but he is held back by relatively weak engage weapons. And Roy wouldn't be very good except for the fact that he gives you Level+5 upon engaging, so turning him on just makes you stronger all around, and it's hard to complain about that. Also Hold Out's pretty nice. I have found he in particular is typically an afterthought for me, as in both runs I found I'd rather give my front-liners all of the other Emblems that go well on them over him, so thus far I've wound up throwing him on Alcryst (in his default class) and Jean (as a Martial Master).

    Micaiah and Lucina are the less impressive ones, IMO. Micaiah's best thing is turning staffs into an AoE effect, which can be great, but is very situational. The range bonus on staffs when engaged is nice, but since Physic exists, not really a huge buff most of the time outside of the early game. Great Sacrifice is also strong in theory, but I found it rarely necessary - usually when I'm using it it's more because I know it'll give her user a lot of xp and the engage is about to expire. And Lucina, well, her letting a character do backup attacks from a distance is nice, but unreliable and doesn't actually add that much damage most of the time; and her engage attack requires you to have a swarm of friendly units near the target, and even then ends up generally less impressive than most engage attacks. At least she has some fairly good engage weapons? Though it is really sad to Falchion doesn't get to be effective on most Dragons in the story, since for some stupid reason they decided that "Dragon" and "Fell Dragon" needed to be different categories, and Falchion only gets Effective: Dragon, not Fell Dragon. (As does the Dragonslayer, stupidly enough, but I guess that's another subject.)
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-03-04 at 12:23 PM.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Really? I felt much the opposite, personally.
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    The twist with Alear's death, return as a Corrupted, and then resurrection as an Emblem was surprising, but just that, nothing more. For all practical purposes all it amounted to was an excuse to add the Engage+ mechanic to the game, which is pretty overpowered.
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    This was probably the one that I didn't think was all that interesting honestly. It just felt like repeating Byleth coming back and it came way way too late for it to feel impactful or meaningful. Alear was a totally hohum main character both in practice and in relation to everyone else. Everyone instantly falling in love with him from the onset save the four baddies and the main baddie got really annoying.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
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    Trying to humanize Zephia and Griss on their literal deathbeds, only a chapter after Zephia murdered Marni, a child, in cold blood for turning on her, was a terrible idea. The best those two could hope for was "villains you love to hate" status, and while they weren't exactly there, trying to go the complete opposite direction with them at the last minute was an awful call.
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    This is one of the ones I felt like if they'd introduced it earlier and actually stuck with it, the pay off would have been good. Instead of just pulling it out the end, making the scenery chewing baddies actually have motivations other than TEH EVILZ would have been a big improvement on the early game.



    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
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    Lumera's second death was even more drawn out and melodramatic than the first. It could maybe have had a point if Alear had reacted more like they should have to her first death, a bit detached because they don't really know her and only have her word that she's their mother, but had a much stronger reaction the second time after developing all these stronger relationships with people who knew her better and feeling that lack of a parental connection, but that's not how they did it.
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    It might just be because I've lost a parent, but both times hit hard for me.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
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    And the final chapter stuff with Sombron was just lame. They turned him into a generic anime villain that believes in individual strength and disdains working with others, while also giving him that Emblem he cared about for some reason, as if they also wanted to make him sympathetic in some way. It did not land with me at all, it just made him an even weaker villain than he was to begin with IMO.
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    IDK what game you were playing but FE:Engage is a lame generic anime game. Giving it the lame anime villain it deserved was good. I'd have liked more mentions of the Emblem of Foundations before this, instead of just introduced as an excuse to have the Villain Emblems that didn't even look like the villains themselves for the final fight. Sombron wasn't a particularly strong villain from the start. We don't know his motivations until the very end and if they'd given us anything to go off of from the start he'd have been better for it. At least they gave him some motivation beyond "I'm a giant black cobra dragon, of course I'm evil".


    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    There's definitely a couple of Emblems that are on the weaker side, though Eirika and Ephraim is not one of them. Their Emblem is kind of a generalist one: it raises your damage and reduces incoming damage when in Eirika mode, raises your damage and gives you free healing in Ephraim mode, and does all of that when engaged. Eirika mode's ability that gives you bonus damage based on enemy defense is particularly great, helps lower-damage characters significantly in dealing with higher-defense opponents, while higher-damage characters can take more advantage of Ephraim mode's heal-on-hit effect. Its final engage weapon having Effective: Corrupted makes it great against most enemies during main story missions, too.
    Maybe I just didn't invest/really seem to notice this. I was basically oneshotting everything up to the point I got them so the extra damage really wasn't noticeable and I rarely switched between the two which was probably my mistake.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    In general, I'd rank the Emblems (not counting DLC since I don't have it) like so:

    The Best: Lyn and Ike.
    Strong: Marth, Eirika, Corrin, Byleth.
    Good: Celica, Sigurd, Leif, Roy.
    Situational: Micaiah.
    Meh: Lucina.
    I generally agree with this. Lucina felt like a weird one though I had her on Diamante for a long time and he was a beast. The DLC Emblems are all pretty great from what I could see and you don't lose them when you lose the others either.

    Tiki is hideously OP on the MC because her stuff synergies with the Dragon stuff in the same way Corrin does and she has a skill that boosts your level up upgrades and it comes pretty cheap. I put it on a few people and they were absurd by the end.

    Hector makes any tank tankier and lets you follow up as long as you're attacked so just...more tank goodness.

    The Three Houses one gives you a ton of weapon proficencies, they give you combat arts in a game where they don't exist so they're really great in general, a good number of weapons. They're good on front line folks. Their randomization makes them a little tricky but I never felt that it impacted much.

    Camilla makes non-flying characters have the same movement as a flyer. I put her on my healer and she carried me without needing Micaiah with just how easy it was moving around the map. She also gets a magic axe and tome so high magic is good with her.

    And apparently the last wave is coming out in 4 days so....my second playthru may be sooner than I expected. I feel like my second game will go better now that I know more of what I'm doing with emblems and how each character is when you get them.

    Soren is obviously another mage one and I found he was better than Celica. He gives you a wide ranged attack which can soften up bosses in the same way Lyn can but just not as much or nearly as far and his Anima Focus and Flare are nice debuffs on enemies.
    Last edited by Razade; 2023-03-04 at 10:55 PM.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
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    This is one of the ones I felt like if they'd introduced it earlier and actually stuck with it, the pay off would have been good. Instead of just pulling it out the end, making the scenery chewing baddies actually have motivations other than TEH EVILZ would have been a big improvement on the early game.
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    Sure, if they had tried to make the villains have more to them than just being generic evil villains from the get-go, that would have been better, absolutely. But they didn't, and trying to tack that on on their literal deathbeds after an entire game of them just being generic evil villains really does not work, IMO.


    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
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    IDK what game you were playing but FE:Engage is a lame generic anime game. Giving it the lame anime villain it deserved was good. I'd have liked more mentions of the Emblem of Foundations before this, instead of just introduced as an excuse to have the Villain Emblems that didn't even look like the villains themselves for the final fight. Sombron wasn't a particularly strong villain from the start. We don't know his motivations until the very end and if they'd given us anything to go off of from the start he'd have been better for it. At least they gave him some motivation beyond "I'm a giant black cobra dragon, of course I'm evil".
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    Between the two options of "evil Dragon that is just evil," and "generic anime villain that believes in individual strength and disdains working with others," I'll personally take the first one. It's bland, it's never going to be anything special, but it works better at a basic level, IMO. And suddenly switching from one to the other at the last minute is definitely not a good way to go.


    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    I generally agree with this. Lucina felt like a weird one though I had her on Diamante for a long time and he was a beast.
    Diamant is pretty good for most of the game, yeah. I had him with Ike in my first run, and he was easily one of my top 2 characters throughout the mid and early late game, only starting to fall off a bit compared to others very late, but still remaining quite good then.

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    Tiki is hideously OP on the MC because her stuff synergies with the Dragon stuff in the same way Corrin does and she has a skill that boosts your level up upgrades and it comes pretty cheap. I put it on a few people and they were absurd by the end.
    Yeah, I've looked up what some of the DLC Emblems do, and Tiki in particular does look blatantly overpowered. Between increasing growth rates, being able to grant your characters an extra life bar, and plenty of other stuff on her list also looking pretty strong, I imagine she'd be at least up there with Lyn and Ike, if not even more powerful.

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    And apparently the last wave is coming out in 4 days so....my second playthru may be sooner than I expected. I feel like my second game will go better now that I know more of what I'm doing with emblems and how each character is when you get them.
    Third, not last. The last wave is the additional story stuff they call the "Fell Xenologues." And yeah, for the most part, a second run does become easier because of that. Though playing on hard, I still hated the mid-game from about chapter 12-17 - the huge, sudden difficulty spike there just sucks the fun out of it.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2023-03-05 at 04:35 PM.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
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    Sure, if they had tried to make the villains have more to them than just being generic evil villains from the get-go, that would have been better, absolutely. But they didn't, and trying to tack that on on their literal deathbeds after an entire game of them just being generic evil villains really does not work, IMO.
    [spoiler]Which is why I said why was this not the way it was from the start.[/spoiler[


    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Third, not last. The last wave is the additional story stuff they call the "Fell Xenologues." And yeah, for the most part, a second run does become easier because of that. Though playing on hard, I still hated the mid-game from about chapter 12-17 - the huge, sudden difficulty spike there just sucks the fun out of it.
    It's the last of the DLC Emblems, which I thought would be clear from the context of discussing the DLC Emblems. Fell Xenologues is a stand alone story.
    Last edited by Razade; 2023-03-05 at 07:07 PM.

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    [spoiler]Which is why I said why was this not the way it was from the start.[/spoiler[
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    To be clear, I don't think that the specific motivations they gave them in that scene would make the game better had they been present earlier, I was agreeing only with the general idea that trying to make them more than just evil earlier would be better.


    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    It's the last of the DLC Emblems, which I thought would be clear from the context of discussing the DLC Emblems. Fell Xenologues is a stand alone story.
    Eh, I wasn't thinking of those as separate because it's all part of the same DLC pass that's only sold as a whole.
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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    I'm currently at chapter 8, but I've gotten sidetracked by getting the DLC emblems. It took a while to get used to the break system and engaging emblems since I usually favor a slower and more defensive style. Consequently, Louis has been my MVP most of the time (usually with Sigurd, but now he's even more powerful with Hector letting him follow up even while using a spear that weighs him down to 0 speed).

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    Default Re: Fire Emblem Engage: Twelve Rings to Rule Them All

    I am midway through my third playthrough. IMO the emblems rank as follow

    S: Tiki (Boosted growth alone make her s, the fact that she turns anyone into an unlikable tank is plus), Corrin (being able to say 'NO' to the enemy via cc is massive), Lucina (bonded shield strats are broken. You can tank an infinite number of enemies), Lyn (makes ANY unit good and mulangir is arguably the best bow in the game, she also has utility via clones), Micaiah (staves are really strong in this game), Soren (Magic tanks are op).
    A: Ike, Hector, Edelgard, Byleth (He would be S if goddess dance was up more often), Veronica, Chrobin (makes mixed attack units stronger and rally spectrum)
    B: Camila, Sigurd (these two can be A or S tier depending on how much you value movement), Erica,
    C: Marth (nice stats, but nothing game breaking), Roy (Corrin spams he's ultimate attack at will), Celica
    D: Leif
    Last edited by Rising Phoenix; 2023-03-14 at 09:52 PM.
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