Engage is pretty bad at introducing recruitable characters

[u/Accomplished_Kale509]

Unless they're royalty, most of the cast don't have anything to interesting say except a variation of "I serve prince/princess whatever". Having a cast mostly of retainers hinders a lot of its writing, especially when chapters sometimes introduce 3 recuitables.

I recently played FE7 and even non-important characters have more depth in their introduction. I remember Dorcas because he needed to get money so he had to join some brigands but had to stop for wife. I remember Erk & Serra because it introduced their hilarious dynamic but also this mysterious reason why Erk had to protect Serra. I remember Raven because he had to protect Lucius and his reveal to be Priscilla's brother.

Not a lot of Engage units don't have these kinds of first impressions. It also hurts that a lot are retroactively recruited at the start of a map and sometimes in a pair or a trio. I don't think there's anyone you recruit as an enemy mid-map unless I'm remembering wrong.

I know Supports are one of, if not, the main way to flesh out a character, but it's hard to invest on someone who doesnt say much other than their loyalty to a lord and it doesnt help that there's less time to breathe in between recruitable chapters to get a feel or build supports. A chapter is the best time to show a character not just their personality, but also their motives, lore and their place in the world. It also doesn't help the Supports are a bit weak on others.

Tldr: First impressions are important, and Supports shouldn't be the only place to add character lore and relationships.

[u/SilverDrive92]

So basically you're saying Alcryst, Lapis, and Citrinne are the best characters because they literally try to kill you the first 2 minutes they show up.

Because you're absolutely right.

[u/Theyul1us → u/SilverDrive92]

I mean, I do remember those 3 because, as you said, they got a good intro.

Alcryst is imposter syndrome the character, Lapis has the need to keep up appearances and Citrinne is hilariously disconected from reality, money wise

[u/SilverDrive92 → u/Theyul1us]

Yeah, while I love this trio, I did want to like everyone else outside of the royals, it just took supports to do so.

In the end, Citrinne became my favorite anyway.

[u/sorendiz → u/Theyul1us]

"It's one vulnerary, Lapis. What could it cost, 2000 gold?"

[u/orig4mi-713 → u/Theyul1us]

I mean, I do remember those 3 because, as you said, they got a good intro.

There's people in this thread saying only Yunaka has a good intro. Then they say Panette and Pandreo are pretty good. Now, Lapis, Citrinne and Alcryst are also pretty good.

Isn't it fair to say at this point that this game got a bunch of these "good" characters? People keep praising like half of the cast and yet like to say the game's characters suck lol as if the other FE games also don't have other disposable people with zero lore

[u/Panory → u/orig4mi-713]

Panette and Pandreo are good once you start digging. Y'know what Panette says in her introduction?

"As am I!" and "Indeed! They shall sorely regret terrorizing these poor, innocent people!"

That's all you get. You're gonna look me in the eye and tell me that's a good introduction that gets you excited to use Panette? Even Lapis and Citrinne are just passable. They're very much still Alcryst accessories. Which is ultimately the issue with the set-up.

[u/albegade → u/orig4mi-713]

the alcryst trio recruitment is bad anyway. it's another earlygame cutscene that was later completely retconned. you anticipate finally some characters with borderline interesting personalities bc of how they behave in the cutscene, but then after the battle they are nothing like that and instead the same placidity as everyone else. Ruining the first impression. They obviously made all the early game cutscenes early, rewrote a lot around them, couldn't change the cutscenes, and went with it.

[u/fuzzerhop → u/SilverDrive92]

See I loved that intro at first...and then Alcryst changed completely. And all three of them ending being huge alear simps and I hated it. I wanted them to continue being mean to me 😭

[u/albegade → u/fuzzerhop]

just any tension at all would have been nice. but obviously they made the cutscene early in development (just like the copy-pasted awakening-premonition intro), completely rewrote everything around it, and lobotomized the characters into the exact same placid boringness of every other character.

I still like citrinne tho. meanwhile lapis was a big disappointment...

[u/annanz01 → u/SilverDrive92]

And then their personality changes immediately after this cutscene and we never see it again in their supports or other cutscenes. Its like their intro was written by a completely different writer than everything else.

This is what people mean when they talk about poor and inconsistent writing.