Emblem rings are extremely powerful, especially if you’ve unlocked all of their abilities by using them long enough. Sigurd’s “Momentum” hits cavalry and flying units like a freight train, Micaiah turns anyone into a cleric/mage, Roy’s “Hold Out” makes a tough but fragile unit into a brick wall, and Similarly. You can also use points earned from participating in battles to get certain skills of the Symbols, even if they don’t have that ring equipped, which lets you customize your army for all kinds of different strategies. Allows if you allocate these slots carefully. Unfortunately, this means that units without emblem rings or inherited abilities are weak, almost to the point of being unusable on harder difficulties. And since you have the opportunity to gain multiple skills or diversify units beyond what you’d normally use with them before the rings are taken away, it’s suddenly possible to have some of your most reliable characters. turns them into benchwarmers. Reclassification isn’t as helpful as it is in other titles and you can’t gain skills from symbols that have been deprecated, so you’re out of luck there as well. Shortly after this the game introduces several new characters with their own rings, so if you want to continue using your original team members, you must either forfeit those new rings for them (their with their own unique set of powers) or just persevere and keep leveling them up with their new allies so they’ll be ready for when they get their rings back.

The most liberal interpretation of this twist is that it is an example of getting the player’s crutches out from under them by forcing them to gracefully drift through the game using the same strategy over and over again. . Eventide Island from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Hitman 3’s Freelancer Mode… This has been done before in the Fire Emblem series, such as the beginning of the Fates’ Revelations route or the Three Houses of Cinder Shadow DLC . Those challenges were fun and rewarding, so why does Engage’s version make so much sense? First, all of the examples we’ve mentioned are relatively short, completely optional, or both. The harsh restrictions of these gameplay segments don’t overstay their welcome and less skilled players don’t have to worry too much about them. But even if you’re following the important path of Engage and not doing much side content, you’ll still be waiting a very long time to get back the first of the original rings. Second, and more importantly, all of these examples implement important themes within their games. Eventide Island and Freelancer mode let you use the environment to your advantage – a key element in both games that you can sometimes forget about when you have a whole arsenal at your disposal. Fate’s Revelations route begins by temporarily removing all but a small handful of your allies, emphasizing how you’ve alienated yourself from both sides and will need to earn back their trust. . And Shadow of Cinder uses its difficult maps and limited resources to show just how tough and difficult things are in the Abyss. Engage’s twist doesn’t actually apply anything. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, so it’s not like the player or allier has done anything to deserve it, and it doesn’t make you think about your strategy in new and interesting ways. In fact, it tacitly encourages you to abandon your old units for fresh ones, which runs counter to the story’s themes of friendship and unity. For some players, this can be an infuriating moment, and we don’t blame them.

So what better way to do this ring-stealing twist? Well, the game actually does a better version of this much later, when you have to retrieve the ring after Elior is resurrected as Corrupted. You get them all back on the same map, however they can’t talk and you can’t use them at their full power because Elior’s Divine Dragon abilities are gone (for the time being). It seems very late in the game, especially since this is the second out of three (!) times that you lose the ring, but imagine if there was some basic implementation like that. It would have been an appropriately shocking moment that temporarily took away your crutches, while still allowing you to keep the team you’ve worked so hard to build. In addition, the game could take away just one ring for a long time – the symbol of the beginning, Marth. It’s the symbol that Elior has come to rely on as a friend and confidant (if we’re giving the writing more credit than it really deserves), so taking Marth away will cause Elior to have a crisis of faith. Everyone else will still have their symbols, so without Marth, Elior will feel less like a capable leader and will need to learn to stand on his own until he can bring Marth back from his power. Don’t be strong enough. Lucina could still come later as a replacement, or perhaps Elior could actually learn to transform into a dragon, but the purpose of these new powers would be to give Elior an identity of his own outside of Marth. You as the player will still need to rethink your strategy, but only for the main character instead of your entire army. And by forcing the other characters to carry Allier for a map or two until they get their new abilities, it will enforce how they need to change in order to grow. By the time Elior is finally reunited with Marth, the choice of whether or not to re-equip her ring will feel more meaningful on both the story and gameplay fronts. Have you outgrown your need for Marth and embraced a new playstyle, or do you want to rekindle that relationship and discover what new powers you can unlock?