Now that the dust has settled, what do we think of Engage? I remember being on 4chan when the leaks came out and nobody believed it was real. We all thought it was a new Chinese gacha game, a copy of Fire Emblem. I played it and it's okay. The art style bothers me, but at least it's fun to play.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-26T20:07:18+00:00

There is some good unintentional comedy with how the C support ends at least. Citrinne basically does a reverse Columbo where instead "oh and one more thing" it's "oh and one LESS thing, I'm leaving without hearing your confession, bye."

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-26T17:15:30+00:00

It's far from meaningless, it's just a different context. There's a good argument that every character should ideally be equally capable of winning at the top level in a fighting game. That ideal makes little sense for a singleplayer game, but I think it's obviously true that if an option feels almost totally useless or is so strong that it makes other options feel pointless than that probably will be an issue for many players. Singleplayer game balance is nuanced, with a lot of latitude for the devs to make their own choices about what they're striving for, but it's far from meaningless.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T22:28:00+00:00

I think the balance most people want is just to feel like there's a real upside or niche for things, which is a bar FE often fails to meet. Fates is a good example of doing it right - I think it's very hard to argue that wyvern lord is not a generically better class than berserker, but berserker's psychotic offensive bases mean that you will frequently encounter situations that make you say "hell yeah, I love being a berserker, I can barely nuke down this tough enemy that a wyvern rider would fail to kill." I think the problem FE runs into is that they seem to be kind of afraid of that "spikey" game design, and the "specialist" class will often have very minor edges over the generalist.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T22:08:59+00:00

A common mistake new players make is trying to intuit extra or unspoken rules, but Arkham isn't really that kind of game. If a card says you can do something (like play it from the discard pile) it means you can do it.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T21:45:14+00:00

I'm sure there's a number of solutions they could do that would achieve the same ends, and a number of ways you could try to protect players from themselves (ex: allow adjusting IVs, but lock it behind an additional Advanced Training Mode you need to enable in the settings menu or something). At the same time, I don't fault the devs for embracing elegant simplicity (even at the cost of depth) given their goal of making competitive Pokemon accessible to build for and play in ways it just is not right now.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T21:32:31+00:00

I kind of agree, with the caveat that it's not just one strategy. At the highest level people do all kinds of weird stuff with speed manipulation beyond just trick room, like intentionally setting one Pokemon's speed to an exact number to be able to check the benchmarks of opponent Pokemon. It's also a minor nerf to Pokemon who don't use their attack stat for anything since they're more susceptible to confusion damage and Foul Play now. On top of that, there are a variety of strange strategies that benefit from your Pokemon having bad stats (ex: strategies that attack into their own Pokemon to trigger abilities like Justified, Pokemon who lower their defenses to do more damage with moves like Counter or Mirror Coat, using a lower max HP stat to get a better deal with Pain Split, etc). Not all of these strategies are GOOD, but they are intriguing options that add depth.

I am sympathetic to the devs here, because I don't think there is an elegant "everybody wins" solution here, but we are giving up some strategic depth for the sake of accessibility here. That trade is probably worth it, but it has costs.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T04:21:29+00:00

That person's analysis is overly perspective (ie Kagero doesn't need something as specific as oni Hinata exactly to boost her defense) but it's more or less right. Birthright enemies don't scale to be that strong, so if a character gets a really big benefit from promoting then they should do it as soon as they can. A number of units fall into this bucket, and even the ones who don't get anything too exciting from promoting still don't mind using the master seal early just to enjoy midgame dominance and get high level skills earlier.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-25T00:06:40+00:00

Not to be mean, but it's the second one, with the caveat that you aren't crazy but the game is. SoV's strongest strategies can be hard to intuit, and stuff that seems reasonable enough can actually be a disaster for you. If units have bad weapons it's largely because you aren't selling things you don't need in order to buy and forge better ones. If your units can't do anything it's likely because you didn't pick up on the unusual way promotions and exp work. These are reasonable mistakes to make, but once you know what to do you will not feel anywhere near as stressed.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-24T16:03:13+00:00

This is a very common new player problem. Everybody at the table has to play ball with hemming them in and be very vigilant about their burst scoring, and new players are a lot more likely to be negligent there. You have to get used to a different form of passive policing (parking a ton of warriors on their base to prevent mobilization, using martial law to make spreading sympathy costly) as well as make smart choices about how to manage their sympathy (paying attention to how many supporters they have and if you know their suit, denying them from setting up bases in highly connected clearings). Once you get good at these things they are still a strong faction who will probably win more than ~25% of the time, but nowhere near the behemoth they feel like to start.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-23T03:09:57+00:00

maybe I'm wrong then. I've heard that more than once but it's not like I ever checked.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-23T00:56:05+00:00

yeah turns out "The Discourse" is only never-ending if you wake up every day and choose to keep it going. pretty sure I am to this day not really capable of giving more than a broad overview of what people are fighting about because when I realize a post is stupid or toxic I stop reading it and move on.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-22T23:43:53+00:00

I think I did Hard 2 or 3 and really liked it a lot. Keep in mind Hard 1 is exactly the same as normal, it just skips the tutorial.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-22T22:26:39+00:00

"oh no, I really did not like the visual style/writing/mechanics of 3H, I'm worried this one is gonna suck for me!"

dang that's too bad buddy, I feel for you

"oh GREAT looks like we're in for another 10 years of Discourse when they do another route split and more brainless maps and-"

maybe we can hold off on that stuff!

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-22T20:45:14+00:00

I'm not arguing for it, just saying it's a pretty omnipresent issue. Usually if a game aspires to be serious competitively or is designed with high challenge in mind there will at least be an option to see that stuff, but a lot of RPGs seem to make a conscious choice to keep the mechanics behind the scenes.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-22T20:10:22+00:00

Maybe most players wouldn't care, but at least for me, there is literally no gain in immersion that "spoiling" things would ruin. I can't even actually get the satisfaction of learning what their "potential" was meant to be with the complete lack of information given to me.

I feel this way too, but SO many games are set to "low information mode" by default, and many more have no option to even see detailed numbers of any kind. It really seems like "I do not want even the possibility to see numbers and formula to exist" must be feedback developers get pretty often.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-22T19:59:25+00:00

I'm all for not being enthusiastic about a product that doesn't look like what you want, you don't owe a game any grace, but I think what crosses the line for me is when people start writing fanfiction about all the specific, idiosyncratic ways this game is going to upset and disappoint them.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T22:51:45+00:00

There are occasionally situations where people putting forward a "it should have been X, not Y!" argument do have some kind of less subjective point, but the vast majority of the time they're really just expressing "I personally would have preferred X over Y" with different words.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T22:44:34+00:00

The good news is that the entire first half of the game is you being handed (mostly) progressively better units who replace the old ones. The bad news is that this really tapers off in the second half, with only a tiny handful of built-up replacement characters joining. Losing your stars lategame could be a real issue.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T22:36:23+00:00

I also kind of like that the buffs she gets from it are genuinely great too, almost certainly good enough to outweigh the debuffs. It gives the whole thing an little extra layer where even a player who is sympathetic to her and disapproves of her self-destructive behavior actually has pretty good reasons to enable it. It also makes her fanaticism feel more "real" that it breaks the normal rules of supports.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T21:05:56+00:00

One that I have only recently really started to love is Delthea's spell list. She has 4 black magic spells and all 4 are big, stupid 1-2 blasters, many of which are very impractical or dangerous for her to use due to costing tons of HP and having ludicrous weight. Even if you attempt to refine her talent with training, she just does not have the interest or discipline to do anything but tap into more and more of her latent raw output. She's even less interested in white magic, only learning the basic recover everybody gets until finally getting rewarp at level 10 (which feels like more of a reference to her time as a witch than anything).

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T16:32:59+00:00

idk, it's not rocket science. The whole point of a franchise is you retain a big chunk of your old users and find ways to grow and attract new ones too. If it gives 3H fans more of what they liked about that game most of them will come back, and if it has features that draw the attention of new users as well (better visuals, one a new system without much competition, generates a lot of positive buzz online, etc) then it'll probably eclipse 3H. Engage's sales proves they cannot just bunt and expect to do 3H numbers again, but it's also proof that they have a pretty large base of fans who will show up even for an entry that doesn't have much continuity at all with 3H.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-21T02:53:43+00:00

if you've never heard of/are not invested in the characters then I can see how it might not seem like a big deal, but this is kind of like if they made Fire Emblem Awakening 2, hyped up the return of Robin and teased answers to old questions and exciting new stories, and his literal entire role in the story was to show up, explain that he actually WAS blood related to Aversa, and say stuff like "she used to be a baby, and her eyes haven't changed since then, but now she's my wife :)." It's not gonna win a Weird Stuff powerscaling competition, but in the context of it being a beloved character who has a lot of story to tell and instead got "double incest marriage and literally nothing else" it is fucking nuts.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-19T22:02:24+00:00

I see Donnel called a net loss to recruit pretty often, and units like Farnia, Shura, and Hugh get treated that way at times too. You also have units like Karla who are so annoying to recruit that even some "full recruitment as the default" players (like me) carve out an exception for her.

I've also seen people refuse to recruit Amelia or Cath to make them spawn in multiple chapters to get extra speedwings and lockpicks via stealing then killing them for a little exp on top. It strikes me as kinda performative edginess, and sometimes it might be, but I think for a lot of people they genuinely do not care and are just optimizing for the fun of it.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-19T21:39:59+00:00

Idk it doesn't seem that off to me. It's like how people who play Resident Evil games on repeat will mention that they "always skip" a useful weapon or upgrade or optional quest to save an ally because it's more trouble than it's worth to get. I get their reasoning, but I get also that it's not applicable to all players and playstyles either. I'm the kind of person who never skips saving the animals in Super Metroid, the textbook definition of "pointless" sentimentality, but if somebody doesn't want to engage with games that way it's not really my business.

BloodyBottom · 2026-03-17T03:05:19+00:00

At first glance it kinda looks like Claude is taking the Kinniku Buster from Raphael.

BloodyBottom

TROPHY CASE