Hello FEU it is I Hatsuru.
Fire Emblem is a game series known for it’s tactical, RPG elements formed into a version of anime chess. Fire Emblem takes place in a medieval setting where it usually focuses on a continental war between countries. With magic and dragons, Fire Emblem is revered for it’s amazing storytelling and gripping characters; elements reminiscent of Operas. Because of its gameplay and storytelling, one of the major points of contention is simply which game is the best in both aspects?
One of the many controversial topics that inherit the vanilla Fire Emblem space is how good, or terrible (in some circles) Engage is. Engage itself has some very controversial elements such as its esteemed art design and ENGAGING personalities we see across the game. Despite its controversy, the game has garned millions of fans and clearly sets a good precedent for the new Fire Emblem game. Instead of snarky melodrama, we get REAL feelings of engagement to the cast and it’s bright and dark story meshed into one game. Which is why I will take the time to discuss why Engage is arguably the best modern day Fire Emblem.
Lets talk about numbers.
[Large numbers = good] right? Not always.
Thracia 776 is widely considered one of the greatest games in the series. According to Parrhesia’s 2024 Survey, out of 122 responses, Thracia 776 was tied for favorite with Radiant Dawn. Despite the remarkable reputation the game has, it remains one of the worst selling ever in the franchise with roughly 106k copies sold overall.
Fire Emblem Engage at opening week sold over 145k copies, while 3H only had 143k copies. Overall, Engage sold 1.6 Million copies internationally.
Numbers in the business world can mean life or death for franchises. The internal debate between whether New Mystery or Awakening saved the franchise due to sale numbers is void. What truly matters in business’s eyes are the numbers to prove that a game is inheritly profitable, not if its a quality product or not. Thracia being esteemed for it’s story and gameplay only for it to be considered a “failure” in the business space is inherently anti-thetical to seemingly the community at large. Lets consider Fates sells:
For the sake of simplicity i’m combining each of Fates paths as one unit.
The Fates Triplets sold 306K copies on it’s release, with selling a total of 3 Million copies worldwide.
Fates…doesn’t have a good reputation for being a good, story driven game. However, the gameplay is argued to be one of, if not the strongest of the 3Ds era of FE games. For the game being disliked for many simplistic reasons, Fates continues to be remebered for its notoriety.
Engage is in the same boat of notoriety.
Despite having “weaker” sells than its predecessor, Engage continues to be discussed both positively and negatively in the community sphere, I daresay more than its predecessor on whats defined as a “good” or “bad” game. Just because a game had weak sales doesn’t mean that will be its defining feature. Indeed, superficial numbers do not really ENGAGE at the meat of the game as a whole.
Engage is inherently built upon the modernization of Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem has been continuously built upon for decades. FE8 onwards gives new experimental mechanics to the series that modernize and enhance the core formula of the games. Consider the Awakening to Fates age of mechanics. You have 6 skills, with 1 personal. In addition to this, you have a function called pair up, that is eventually built upon even more to have a guage needed to proc it, which gives another factor to how you play the game. Engage and the games before it are not exempt from this. It’s predeccesor, Three Houses suffered from a multitude of problems, not limited to the gameplay loop, lack of maps, unbalanced mechanics, etc. Engage SOLVED this by allowing a skippable hub, more maps to play with, and much more balanced mechanics than what 3H had brought. Experimentation is necessary to improve the core mechanics and change up the basic formula. As a community who makes custom campaigns, a majority of us add our own, new mechanics to the basic formula of GBA to enhance the experience. Regardless if we use skillsys, escape, special events or more, what we do is experimental with Fire Emblem’s formula. Engage, and the “Modern” fire emblem games are the same as us. And to discredit it is inherently bad faith.
Engage’s story can be taken literally or satirically.
The pandemic shook the world to its core, its impact cannot be understated. Engage was delayed because of it. Engage is quite literally a celebration of all the FE’s before it, and its story clearly resembles all of the cliches and niches that each story had. Furthermore, on its own Engage’s story has a clear start and end, no nuance and no unclear ending, much like Thracia. Lets consider the visuals of Engage in a vacuum.
Engage is a bright, aesthetically beautiful game meant to show a clear good vs. evil using heroes of old embedded into rings. As a celebration game, it’s sensible that the game would be bright and joyous to celebrate a wonderful franchise. Whether a darker theme to celebrate FE would be proper, its clear that its brighter, more heartfelt story was designed from the get go when creating Engage. Alear could be considered a blue (or red) haired lord cliche of the story that goes on a quest to FIND the rings to save the world. From losing family to uniting the continent, Engage has clear start and end.
If we look at the game satirically, we find the DRAGON KIN that is also the LORD who needs to find the SACRED RINGS to SAVE the WORLD from a EVIL SORCERER or DRAGON/GOD who LOSES their PARENT sometime in the story. Their FRIENDS who GLAZE their power to be able to RESTORE PEACE to their HOMELANDIA.
A clear start to end. Just as Kaga intended.
Regardless of how you approach the games story, it is clear that Engage was made with love for the series that experiments with new gameplay and story meant to get the player ENGAGED in its story.
“Wait, but Ru, how does this coincide with vtubers??”
Well my friend, we are about to get to that.
Engage’s artist was the wonderful Mika Pikazo. Pikazo is also known to be an illustrator for vtubers.
At a quick glance, Bae here may have looked like Alear. However, she shares Pikazo as her illustrator. Much like my remarks about mechanic modernization, we must also discuss ILLUSTRATION MODERNIZATION.
Whether we like it or not, the times demand new art direction. From music albums, to art pieces to even music, the world continues forward. Fire Emblem must adapt to the new modernization. While I myself am partial to some of the older designs, I cannot emphasize that new, vibrant artstyles in this day and age will CONTINUE to SAVE Fire Emblem as a whole. Three houses still retains its “modern”, vibrant artstyle, along with remakes like Echoes and 11/12 which revitalize Shadow Dragon and Mystery, old, now aesthetically inferior games (sorry Shadow Dragon/Gaiden
). The art direction is a necessary outlook to consider going forward to SAVE Fire Emblem. The first thing we look at is the aesthetic, and this goes to custom campaigns as well. 3H was popular because of the art design first, story and gameplay 2nd. There can still be darker games with vibrant looks in the future (FE4R coming in less than 2 months call me Rustradamus). But we must sometimes remember the past, but don’t look back on it.
Vtubers as a whole are significant in the new sphere of gaming. With vtubers over 4 Million Subscribers, its clear that vtubing as a subgenre is more popular than what some of us would like to believe. With more livestreams being dedicated to gaming, vtubers follow the current trends of whats releasing. Fire Emblem must ADAPT to the times and ADOPT the new modernized look so the community will still be able to grow naturally. 3H brought in a large amount of new people, and I have faith that ENGAGE will continue to do so in the future.
Thanks for reading.
