About the Nintendo Switch Fire Emblem Engage Pre-Owned

Nintendo Switch Fire Emblem Engage Pre-Owned
Fire Emblem Engage is the mainline follow-up, in name only, to 2019’s excellent Fire Emblem Three Houses. That game’s focus on story, characters, and its expanded social systems helped make it the best-selling in the series, creating new fans of the franchise out of those who had previously watched Fire Emblem flourish from a distance. I was one of those new converts three years ago, and while I was initially concerned if I was a Fire Emblem fan or just a Three Houses fan, Engage has solidified me in the former. Where Three Houses succeeded by emphasizing its larger-than-life heroes and social systems over combat, Engage triumphs in doing the opposite. Engage is a combat-first, everything-else-second strategy RPG, and although its story takes some time to become engrossing, battles are terrific from the jump and only get better.

Engage’s story begins in a familiar way: A hero saves the world from the Fell Dragon, an evil divinity, and goes into a slumber afterward. They awake 1,000 years later only to discover their battlefield prowess is needed once more. This hero, your protagonist known as the Divine Dragon, must obtain all 12 Engage rings held by neighboring kingdoms. I was never bored by this narrative, but it was simple and often predictable for a large portion of my 50-hour playthrough. The last third of the game’s story further reeled me in with twists, turns, drama, and heart, though, and by the end of my playthrough, I laughed that I had written the story off initially.

Still, Engage is more straightforward; it’s a traditional fantasy story about saving the day, and while at times it’s melodramatic, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t all-in on it, especially in the last third. Power Ranger-esque team-up moments left me smiling like a kid again, and I was sad to say goodbye to these characters when the credits began to roll. Engage’s combat is a return to form for the Fire Emblem series, bringing back the traditional rock-paper-scissors formula where lances beat swords, swords beat axes, and axes beat lances, while fisticuff fighters have an advantage over archers, mages, and thieves. It’s a simple fighting premise that works because it forces you to examine unit placement, movement, and strategy well in advance based on enemy positioning on a given map. And this formula is strengthened by a game that builds on the combat in virtually every sense; most everything you do ties back to what happens in battle, including the game’s namesake, Engage.

Each unit can wear an Emblem Ring, which gives them the ability to Engage or tap into that ring’s power fueled by the soul of a hero from Fire Emblem’s past. This brings series favorites like Marth, Lucina, Roy, Byleth, and more to the game, and while they aren’t the same person as the hero from their original world, they embody them, bringing a heaping dose of nostalgia to Engage for longtime fans. For newer fans who might not realize the excitement behind these returns, the Engage mechanic is still a battlefield boon as it allows the wearer to physically change in appearance, almost embodying the past hero, to become significantly more powerful. When you Engage a unit, they get a special one-time move that usually does extreme damage (or healing), standard attacks are more devastating, some units can move even further, and their ability to dodge or withstand enemy attacks is strengthened.

The Engage mechanic felt overly powerful in the first half, but was still exciting to use nonetheless. The second half, however, is a stern reminder that strategy is still required in nearly every battle, including the Paralogue side quests, which is where Intelligent Systems really stretches its combat design prowess with challenging map