So, I’m playing Engage right now and I’m at Chapter 17, so far it’s an OKAY story and a gorgeous gameplay, I’ve never expected to get very “engaged” in the game mechanics of a FE game since SoV. I’ve also decided to replay 3H in maddening mode, and… I don’t want to sound rude but, gameplay wise Engage is leagues above 3H; firstly hear me out. 3H maps aren’t “Bad” tbh SoV and SS has the same sins as 3H; but the amount of customization and options the game give you is kinda scary, to the point on which it could make the maps useless or render them unfulfilling.
Like I know some characters could be personalized into whatever you like in Engage (to the point on which is required for some characters to become useful units) but is isn’t in the same amount and detailed as 3H where you could literally make an entire solo run with Lysithea, Bernie or whoever you want outside the main lords. I warped so many times Lysithea to one shot the boss that it isn’t funny anymore, and yes I know there’s more ways to play the game like doing an Ironman or leaving the characters in their base class; but let’s be honest, where is the fun in not using the mechanics the game gives you?.
Guess is a me problem, but what everyone here thinks?
I think the answer lies in HOW much customization the game allows. I think a lot of people like Fates more (purely gameplay wise), because the class changing is a lot more limited. Awakening to a similar extent. I think that’s also why a lot of people love FE8 split promotions.
Personally, I don’t like 3H because it strays too far from the core FE formula. You have way too many class tiers to go through. And at the start, everyone is the equivalent of a GBA trainee (Noble/Commoner classes).
I think that’s what makes Engage more appealing. It’s more similar to Fates in its gameplay. And also the Somniel isn’t as overwhelmingly huge compared to Garrech Mach Monestary.
i dislike unit customization because it takes the uniqueness out of the hands of the designer and puts it in the hands of the player, who often just slaps them in one of the most powerful classes in the game (wyvern emblem), does memes (dark mage cord), takes the “canon” route (most of the 3h cast). in my opinion, actually building a unit around the minutiae of their unique characteristics involves taking them through specific class paths that necessitate being intimately familiar with the game or becoming a slave to o!fe16class. id much rather get kagaesque unit design where they just have a funny characteristic like a skill or prf weapon to differentiate themselves from the cast and fall within a specific classline. this classline can even be unique to the unit, a lot of characters in later kaga games have atypical promotions which are often super powerful and memorable.
also
Yeahhh while I personally love unit customization, especially with Fates system but I’m sorry to break it to you most of the people here very much prefer the old style of units where there’s no such thing as reclassing, maybe a branches promotion if you’re lucky
Now to add onto why I like unit customization
It’s both hilarious and adds replay value, there will always be an optimal strat so I don’t particularly care if people want to spam wyvern, that’s their business. I just like doing silly stuff and using the same characters to fulfill different roles. It’s fun.
I don’t care for unit customisation in FE. Honestly where customisation is hyper-granular that’s pretty much always a dealbreaker for me, but something like XCOM or FFT/A/2 or Fell Seal where units are modular to a limited and straightforward extent, and you never really have to get in the weeds, they work great for the games they’re in. But with FE, you’re controlling up to roughly 16-18 guys, and a key benefit of the systems being as they are is that it’s all pretty straightforward and transparent. And an important lever in designing maps is knowing what the player is going to have access to - or at least, the upper limits of it.
But yeah, obviously it’s going to be to taste to some degree. I don’t know much about FE17’s systems but they don’t appeal to me, and the aesthetic and writing aren’t exactly going to pull me in, either. I liked FE16 well enough, but I generally cleaved pretty close to characters’ canonical paths, or what felt natural for their niches; it was really obvious that going full wyverns and wizards was optimal, but on Hard, the game didn’t exactly push me into needing to optimise. And 16, where units are explicitly students in training being moulded by the protagonist, was uniquely suited to the system from a story perspective.
The problem with Three Houses gameplay is that because the player builds most of the units from the ground up, the maps are never designed around what the player has available. This is made worse by the fact that most maps are reused for several battles, so the maps aren’t designed for any specific enemy placement either. Most of the time in Three Houses, I feel like I’m either just beating over enemy stats with my stats or exploiting movement abilities to finish a map in a handful of turns rather than employing much strategy. I’ve only finished two routes because I get bored and lose my motivation to play around the start of the timeskip. The game puts a lot of filler between segments of the actual FE gameplay, and when the FE gameplay isn’t even that good when you finally get to it, it’s hard to keep playing.
Customization isn’t necessarily bad per se - it’s that because the game imbalance and how much limited you are to the “best” classes that makes it look bad.
It’s like you could probably have almost a dozen of Wyvern Lords, with the exceptions being a few mages/staffbots, simply because it’s the best and optimal play in opinion by the players which keeps repeating it. This is what is called the “Complacent Gaming Syndrome”, where something is likely to be very overused. For example, the aforementioned Wyvern Lords in Three Houses (despite this, it’s not really the best idea to have everyone become of this class, specifically because having at least one Faith magic user could be helpful, given that they can do what pure combat stats can’t, such as warping units to move further than they should. In Three Houses, flying classes like Wyvern Lord can only be put with flying battalions; other classes can have any type of battalion just fine.
Which now brings us to this: it’s given that a lot of FE8-based hacks go on for a single promotion that always occurs to the same unit each. It’s probably revisiting the old, restrictive roots, but it was simply more simple, less problems when you don’t need to consider the differences between the advanced class promotions for each base class, etc.
That being said, even with the single-promotion with no customization where everyone lives and dies by what is their class and the sole advanced class they get to class change to - along with any other uniqueness in stats and personal weapons - if the game isn’t designed with somewhat balanced cast in mind, there will be always these units who are used more often.
So unfortunately, avoiding customization doesn’t mean you will be likely to avoid cast imbalance. There’s more than just to customizations for game balance. Whether or not you want to choose to cast it away and return back to FE6/FE7 style or work around on addressing customization issues is up to you
THIS, the maps of 3H IMO aren’t that iconic compared to other FE meaning that the use fo the game mechanics isn’t that fulfilling compared to others like FE4
Call me hater, but I do dislike customization and believe it to be an error.
I would find it acceptable if you could have a very, very little margin of customization. Like branching promotions in Sacred Trilogy (the sacred stones reskin), where you have the branching promotions and the skills you can obtain in each class, being that the maximun. Well, that and one personal skill.
Or in other words, Holy war with branching promotions and the skill system of Awakening.
What we had in 3H for example was simple obscene. You could customize your character to a point where the game lost it’s meaning. Every character can be anything, and that means you can just turn them into the most optimal class for every battle and change their abilities to your necesities. This simply breaks the game and, as Permafrost said, turns the game into a stats competition. Now add that you can grind to level 99.
Hell, I remember that in engage I had to force myself to stay in the given classes for each character in order to make the game a little bit harder.
So no, I’ll never support customization, at least not to the level we got now.
The holy war with branching promotions x awakening skills is an option, then there’s the other: making every character useful in its own right. Parrhesia does a good job with the in Drums of War. In that game, every character is useful for something and weak to something. For example, Roxelana is a boosted hero with little to no resistance, making her amazing against warriors but terrible when surrounded by mages, specially during an enemy turn. Every character is like this: they have something unique or are specially useful in some scenarios, but they will go down easily if they meet the wrong conditions.
I only like customisation if:
1.) the game goes all out on it (like 3H)
2.) the game locks you into your choices (like 3H)
But customisation also must have near-perfect class balance, or there’s no point. (so, unlike 3H)
I’m obviously biased, but I think there’s an amount of customization that is fun and engaging but that line is a really fine one.
For me customization is best when it’s limited and permanent, like fe8. Having a unit develop down a particular path appeals to me a lot.
I also like limited reclassing like awakening or fates but I don’t love how many times that can be done.
But also my real problem with customization is actually class balance. If classes aren’t balanced and there is too much customization then harder playthroughs of the game will being to centralize a small set of classes and can make all the units in the game feel the same despite how different they were at the outset.
Basically imo customization is fine so long as the choices you can make are different and roughly equal in power otherwise it quickly becomes a problem
You guys do some nuts Strategies, I usually have fun trying to leave no survivors. Kill everyone possible sure I might be a little over leveled (especially since I only nee game +) but I usually have fun.
Personally, I dislike FE11’s and FE12’s (that be Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem) customization of classes, and I know some that ADORE these games because of this feature, but personally I feel like a lot of the units identity is lost when suddenly Gordin can become a mage and other goofy reclasses you can think of.
I can appreciate the gameplay variability and freedom you have, but it’s just not something for me, because it breaks my perception of the world, because apparently anyone can use staves or cast fireballs or swing heavy weapons as long as the army has enough slots for the class XD.
So on that end I dislike when customization is done so vicariously with little limitations.
Customization is great. I don’t think it’s bad to let the player rip the game apart. The issue is that in 3H et al there’s no reason not to; you spend more time to do so in other games, and they have difficulty levels designed around maximum exploitation.
Like… just have one difficulty level with casual/classic toggle. Let the player go wild but have the brunt of customization come with a cost of time, effort, or other resources. I don’t care if something is centralizing if it’s still less of a pain to do things “normally.” Like, it’s your choice if you wanna grind out an uber-unit so you can just hit autobattle from then on.
3H had a lot of boring gameplay regardless of customization. (Gambits and demonic beasts are still kinography)
Edit: Also MMOs usually got around this problem by simply segregating customization into distinct roles. When MMOs stop doing this it’s because the social aspect of the game isn’t healthy and no one is there to fill a specific role, but in FE… it’s a single player game. You can always fill that role, provided not all your dudes are dead.
