Fire Emblem Engage
15 hours inn.
I can be confident in some few things and those are that this is a good contender for muh personal goty this year and what it lacks in the beginning(waifub8) the game builds up in a nice way where one does not feel cheated.
What I kinda think is the biggest problem is the Somniel mechanics or where you supposed to go for interaction with the characters, I feel that it is quite poor because for now(this might change the further I get into the game it might become like three houses) the interaction is quite limited and there is just 2 mini games because the fishing-bit isn't opened. So for now, how I interact is to get them up in the support level via either a combat trail, romantic dinner or gift them random things like horseshit(none of the characters like it when you gib them horseshit). Then there is going to bed and sleep and then a random NPC is going to wake you up.If this was another JRPG I might've felt cheated when it comes to the waifub8 interaction and the fwend simulation of this game so-far but I actually like the gameplay-part rather then the waifub8 interaction that is presented in the game, so now I don't feel that I have to change the waifub8score it is still a solid 6 out of 10.
And some of the waifu's that is presented in later chapters or as side-quest are a nice 8/10 b8 with nice tiddies.
The real meat and potatoes of the game is obviously the combat mechanics with the Emblem heroes and that the stages is in 3d so after each combat you can walk around in the stages and to interact with characters to get gibs and find gibs for weapon upgrades and other upgrade like the Emblems. Personally like this more than the whole Sominel-place interaction-bit area, the Sominel feels like they just put it there so that the people that are fans of Three Kingdoms can feel familiar with this new game.
So to level up the emblem heroes, also the bigger the level is with the bond then you can inherent emblem heroes skills which is really nice way to mix things up.
The engage mechanics at first it just seems like a gimmick that isn't really needed in the game because it is somewhat overpowered, and you are overpowered for 3 turns but without it the combat would've lasted maybe a few turns longer which would have felt more like a grind when you are wanting to level up some fags.
Also the downgrade to make it just 1v1 instead of what Three houses did. makes the battle just feel more vicious and brutal in a strange way than what they really are, and the the sound design really shines because Nintendo is semi progressive, they have chosen to have both men and women voice the soldiers and bandits, so the death cries, and these death cries becomes like allot more brutal when Japanese women screams in agony which gives a nice tension to each battle,even when you have 6 characters that have engage on , this is real fun.
Then the world-map of the game is really where the focus is since you can grind and obviously get to the next chapter and further the story, what is annoying is that you have to get to the Somniel or walking area of the game to giv gibs to each region while you git gibs from the grind that you did in the world map.
So the gameplay is still a solid 7/10 and I don't think this will change later because it feels like a real video game package with solid gameplay.
Fwend simulation.
Now this is unfortunately a poor display and a real shame, because you can see that the developers and maybe even hired developers from other companies like monolithsoft have really put allot of resources to make each waifu, male character and even hero emblem feel special The problem is that in some ways Nintendo has marketed the game for the Hero Emblems and engage function of the game, the Hero Emblems is the fate/autism rip off of legendary heroes and even have these descriptions when you first get to know about the heroes, then you start to interact with them and build a bond of the hero Emblems, and you don't get much if any lore, you get hints if you knew about these heroes from previous Fire Emblem games.
So if you want to know more about characters and have an ebin time this is not really a game for you because if this was Persona 5, you would've been forced to have lunch with Ann or even first interactions with one of the characters in Persona 5.
So fwend simulation unfortunately is about 5/10
So in conclusion:
>waifub8 6/10
>gameplay 7/10
>fwend simulation 5/10
So the score for the overall packaged feels like it is a 7 to almost being an 8 out of 10 but will update further if there is something that needs to be updated or refined, or if the game is able to fuck up that I need to lower the score of the 3 essential things in th game.
Waifu's can only go up, if in some case they are able to introduce a lesbian or something really fucking ugly it will go down, for obvious reasons.
The gameplay can in theory only go up but will go down if there is anyhting game breaking like a glitch or bug.
Fwend Simulation is a bit more tricky since it is so tied with the story and even future interactions, so it can both go up and down to even saying that one should go with another game if fwend simulation is getting worse or it offends me in any way. Kinda like that negro that found out that his new and proud waifu from faith/autism was really a whore.
https://www.animemaru.com/otaku-devestated-after-discovering-favorite-anime-is-adapted-from-eroge/
If reading this strange preview or semi-review of Fire Emblem Engage have made you interested in trying out one of the games in the series, the closest to this Fire Emblem Engage game is the 3ds game Fire Emblem Echoes and then you will see the updates that really matter and don't matter in this Engage game.
Reason is the combat is 1on1 characters, worldmap and of course visual novel-like story which in turn has a limited fwend simulation compared to giants like Persona 4.