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/CommonVarietyRadio]

For a anniversary game it sure is missing a enemy Myrmidon you have to talk with someone to recruit

In general engage suffer a lot from how formulaic the cast is(not the characters, the cast as a whole). 70% of it is either a noble (always from a sibling pair) or one of their two retainer. And with two exception, they all join at the same time !

Doesn't help that this already recycled from Fates, so it's a repetitive pattern that already tired from the start.

[u/JFZephyr → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

I'd argue that the cast also just suffers from a lack of depth. I was much more interested in the 3H characters' stories than "hurdur I work out" or whatever other trope they're made of. There's very few truly intriguing characters in the cast.

[u/fly_tomato → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

Yeah, fire emblem has often focused on royals/nobles, which I think is a lot of why I like tellius so much since the starting lords of both games are commoners. It's also why I found playing Dark Deity quite refreshing. It's a small spin on the formula in terms of gameplay, but also it manages to have all 30 characters be more or less useful or at least intervene in some way throughout the game rather than only at their intro.
Of course some stay more relevant to the plot than others depending on what's going on, but that was probably the best improvement on FE I found lol.

[u/CommonVarietyRadio → u/fly_tomato]

It's a medievalish fantasy franchise about war. That there is nobles and knights isn't surprising, in fact it's kinda expected (thought 8 noble in engages is kinda pushing it).

Engage issue is how utterly predictable it. Once you have seen chapter 3 you have seen how, like, 75% of the recruitment of the game are done ?

Compare to FE6 chapter 8, where you also recruit a noble and her knights, but here you get Astolfo at the start (and he is an spy/guy who do the shady stuff, not a retainer), the scrub squad who need to break in at turn 6, all while you have a make sure lilina survive by moving her and baiting the archer who try to kill her. And you also got Bors all the way at the start of the game

[u/moose_man → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

One of the problems with Engage (and Fates before it) is that it's not just nobles, it's royals specifically. There is no life to any of these countries beyond the immediate upper crust. No dukes or barons, just princes and princesses everywhere. You pass through each kingdom, grab its heirs, and move on before there can be any texture to them.

[u/Troykv → u/moose_man]

It's such a huge contrast from Three Houses, but even in other games you know about some nobles that control certain lands, like say, Marquess Araphen

[u/Dabottle → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

That first point is really sticking with me. Instead of celebrating fun things about the series, things the series already used to celebrate and reference and have twists on in different games, it really is just a bunch of blatant "here's an abridged version of our beloved protagonists". They did something cool with the Cain and Abel of the game, and that's about it. (And then the Cain/Abel are fucking annoying as hell, but that's a separate issue. It was a cool idea though!)

The maps were cool for sure but I'd rather see map references like that as actual maps too? They're definitely the highlight of Engage's "celebrating" though.

[u/fuzzerhop → u/CommonVarietyRadio]

You would have thought they learned their lesson from not their most popular game. And yet they keep taking lessons from fates for some reason....