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Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers of Fire Emblem: Three Houses.The Nintendo Direct on Sept. 13, 2022 announced a slate of upcoming titles, one of the most exciting of them being Fire Emblem Engage. This Nintendo Switch game is set for a Jan. 20, 2023 release date and will feature a new main character named Alear who uses Engage Rings to borrow the powers of past heroes in the Fire Emblem universe.
Fire Emblem is a long-running series, but it's been a while since the most recent title, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, was released. In the years since its 2019 debut, players have had a lot of time to consider what the franchise can do better its next time around.
Fire Emblem Engage Should Have A Livelier Protagonist
One thing that is almost guaranteed to improve from Three Houses is having a livelier protagonist. While the customizable avatar characters are something that has been done since Awakening, it has long overstayed its welcome.
In some ways, Byleth was the best version of the avatar, but the character lacked any personality whatsoever and had no original dialogue. Thankfully Alear seems to remedy this and will actually speak alongside their cutscenes. The only thing that makes them an avatar anymore is choosing their name, gender, and clothing choice.
Fire Emblem Engage Can Improve Forging
The forging was rather pointless in Fire Emblem: Three Houses with the option of purchasing new weapons being far more efficient than fixing old ones or making new ones.
The same goes for repairing the relics as the items required to do so were incredibly difficult to find making players save their relics until they actually needed them. Old forgery should be brought back with something along the lines of one of Fire Emblem's top games, Radiant Dawn where players could customize the stats they wanted to increase and even change the color of the weapons.
Fire Emblem Engage Ought To Have More Cutscenes
While the cutscenes are almost always beautiful in Fire Emblem games, they simply lack too few of them. Many key scenes like Rodrigue's death and Dimitri's decision to put his revenge behind him were too important to leave to blocks of text.
On top of this, the cutscenes involving the 3D animations speaking have grown stale with the backgrounds behind the characters rarely rotating between new ones. Fire Emblem Engage needs to improve upon this and make the game feel as if the journey is always moving forward.
Fire Emblem Engage Could Bring Back The Overworld Map
The overworld map in Fire Emblem games has been a recurring feature, but it isn't always there and was missing in Three Houses. This feature offers far more overall gameplay with many more opportunities, as seen in games like Fire Emblem Awakening, one of the best Nintendo RPGs for the 3DS.
Players can generally find monsters spawning on old maps where they can go back and fight new creatures on familiar maps. This was somewhat done in Three Houses, but there was a limited amount of how much a player could actually do. What Engage needs more than anything that Three Houses didn't allow is to breathe.
Fire Emblem Engage Should Minimize Hub Importance
The hub, which primarily took place at Garreg Mach Monastery, was an interesting feature, but it's something that needs to lose a ton of focus. The game strayed too far away from its original turn-based gameplay and more into a high school RPG. Not only this but players were limited to how much they could do.
While this initially doesn't seem bad, it offers players little ways to train in preparation for the next chapter in the story. They could end up stuck on the next chapter with no way to gain more experience points before attempting. Based on the Fire Emblem Engage trailer, fans do know that there will be a hub. Though whether it's nearly as important as Three Houses's is unknown.
Fire Emblem Engage Should Have One Route
One of the worst features of Fire Emblem Fates was how the game was split into two separate video games (later a third) with different routes. It felt like a cheap cash grab, especially when there were vast similarities between the two stories.
Three Houses on the other hand improved upon this greatly giving fans four different routes and all in one game. While this did improve upon the idea in Fates, it's something that needs to fade into the past once more. It does not seem as of now that Engage will have more than one route which is great if that's the case.
Fire Emblem Engage Could Have A Feature Like Trial Maps Or The Training Tower
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Three Houses offered little bonus rewards that players could grind to obtain outside the main game. Some of the best Fire Emblem games like Path of Radiance and Sacred Stones offered additional gameplay that put players through various extra trials that unlocked different items and even certain characters.
For instance, many of the villains faced in Sacred Stones, as well as a few background characters never before seen could be obtained as playable characters. This is a great alternative as well to give players something to do outside the main campaign that also stays on the topic of the type of addictive gameplay that Fire Emblem offers.
Fire Emblem Engage Should Include PvP
Fire Emblem is perhaps one of the most perfect Nintendo games to feature PVP and yet it never has. Despite Nintendo desiring many of their games to have more online features, Fire Emblem has always lacked in this area and somehow Three Houses didn't begin what it should've started.
Many fans have been begging for a PVP mode since its GBA era and perhaps with Fire Emblem Engage they will finally get what they deserve. A PVP option for Fire Emblem could bring new life to the franchise and add a boom of competitiveness the series needs.
Players Want More DLC For Fire Emblem Engage
Many Fire Emblem fans were stunned at the lack of DLC regarding Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It had one DLC expansion and the DLC was more of a separate story rather than part of the main game.
The options for DLC were rather limited due to other problems in the game due to the fast pace of the game following an organized calendar for every event. This is something that likely won't be in Engage, so the option for more DLC like Fates and Awakening received is more than likely.
Fire Emblem Engage's Post-Game Options Should Be More Robust
While the New Game Plus addition in Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a fantastic feature that shouldn't disappear, forcing players into a new game is never a good idea. Fire Emblem games are the best when they have room to breathe and let players explore the rest of the world after beating the game.
This is something many games like Sacred Stones, Awakening, and Fates did and is something that should return to the game. This gives the game more options to add DLC and other bonus features to keep players talking about and playing their game. The Engage Rings are also a perfect opportunity for developers to add more Rings into the game in updates or DLCs.