Fire Emblem is one of Nintendo’s longest running series, but one that only began appearing outside of Japan during the Game Boy Advance era. Since then, impressively, the series has managed to gain popularity around the world with the first mainline Switch entry, Three Houses, quickly becoming the best-selling game in the entire series. The latest series entry – Fire Emblem Engage – delivers promising first impressions, with a range of improvements over its predecessor.
For those unfamiliar with the series, the gist is this – Fire Emblem is a tactical role-playing game. Battles are fought across a series of map broken up into a grid around which players can move their units. You’ll build up your characters between battles while working your way through the main campaign. It’s wickedly addictive and the series has long been respected as a result.
With Fire Emblem Engage, Intelligent Systems returns to some of the series more traditional concepts with a fantasy-driven story spread across multiple continents serving as the game’s framework as opposed to the almost Persona-esque school system of Three Houses. That’s not to say some of these ideas haven’t been carried over – the light exploration and side content remains – but it carries a different tone.
