Playing engage atm. Seriously who writes these dialogues?

[u/Rex__Lapis]

Just met this Yunaka girl and holy crap who writes this shit?

Also every mf gushing over the divine dragon from the second the game starts... I can not take this game serious.

What happened?

Edit: okay after a day with Yunaka she's my favorite character and literally my wife. Am i schizo?

[u/ragunyans]

The "saturday morning cartoon" and "it doesn't try to be serious" is so weird to me because it very much does try to be serious? There are plenty of comedic moments, but the story that IS there does delve into some pretty dark themes and tries to deliver earnest messages about family, identity, one's place in the world.

I like Engage, and think the overall story is pretty unambitious and average (and the devs themselves have said this - when you're just making a story to push along the gameplay, it's not gonna BE groundbreaking), but it's not the intentional clown show folks make it out to be. A little silly and inspired by tokusatsu? Sure. More aimed towards kids this time? Yeah.

I do agree that you should meet it where it is, though. This is not some grand, political war story. The dialogue quality IS poorer, and there are legit criticisms to be had, but I think how bad it is gets overblown because of the game it followed, and the huge expectations it gave people.

Also y'all realize Yunaka only says Hiya Papaya in her intro chapter, right? She has a quirky way of speaking (and many people have touched on why she does this), but it's nowhere near as bad in the rest of her conversations lmao

[u/shhkari → u/ragunyans]

The "saturday morning cartoon" and "it doesn't try to be serious" is so weird to me because it very much does try to be serious? There are plenty of comedic moments, but the story that IS there does delve into some pretty dark themes and tries to deliver earnest messages about family, identity, one's place in the world.

The thing is saturday morning cartoons also do try to be serious but they do so in a way that is fitting for a saturday morning cartoon.

[u/Shanicpower → u/ragunyans]

The "saturday morning cartoon" defense has always felt very copium to me. Those shows are funny, lighthearted and charming. Engage takes itself super seriously, dwelling on extremely drawn out death scenes like with Lumera or the villain team whose names escape me. The supports feel almost alien a lot of the time with how strange and stilted the dialogue is. I wish the game fully embraced being nonsensical and wacky, that would be fun. Give me some goofy-ass audacious villains like Metal Face from Xenoblade or Raphael from BG3, not Sombron's lame ass.

[u/P0STCARD → u/Shanicpower]

bro I wish Zephia was as much of a shit head as Metal Face. Dude had zero redeeming qualities and dies a pathetic death and I'd have it no other way! Elizabeth Maxwell is a great va and she's really giving it her all but unfortunately the material for Zephia just wasn't good.

I quote Metal Face's "yyyuaaarrrrrrrgh!!!! no... not like this.... NOT LIKE THIIIIIIIISSSSSSS!!!!!!!" daily. Such a fun loser.

[u/Shanicpower → u/P0STCARD]

Metal Face is unironically one of my favourite villains of all time. He has plenty of screentime to shine without ever overstaying his welcome, manages to both be a genuine threat while also being hammy as shit, and has a surprisingly interesting background/motivation while still having zero sympathetic qualities.

[u/X_Marcs_the_Spot → u/Shanicpower]

Griss is the best villain in Engage, and it's not even close.

[u/omfgkevin → u/ragunyans]

I like Engage, and think the overall story is pretty unambitious and average (and the devs themselves have said this - when you're just making a story to push along the gameplay, it's not gonna BE groundbreaking)

See this is one thing I find even worse about Engage. You are the developers of FIRE EMBLEM, and it's honestly so tone-deaf as the devs of the franchise to look at your history of work and go "yeah, we know FE fans literally don't give a fuck about the story so we didn't put any care into it".

[u/ragunyans → u/omfgkevin]

I think there was effort, but they very deliberately wanted to take a different direction from the "adult war story" (their words) that 3H was, as they were aiming for younger audiences with this game. As such, it wasn't as heavy, or intricate - and yeah, the gameplay seemed to be the main focus. I don't particularly begrudge that.

But the execution, as a result? You can definitely argue there was much left to be desired.

I think Engage had several writers? I remember counting at least 6 or 7 in the credits, and think it would have benefited from a much tighter and smaller writing team. There are cool hooks and foundations of interest in the plot, but I think the pacing ultimately does it a disservice.

The manga improves on this by actually slowing the neckbreak pace and using the extra information in the game's side content (supports and the like) to restructure certain scenes and expand on things a bit. (This was especially well done in the Brodia-Elusia arc.)

[u/Palladiamorsdeus → u/ragunyans]

Why wasn't their focus...ya know, fans of Fire Emblem?

[u/RamsaySw → u/Palladiamorsdeus]

The big problem is that Engage as a whole had no coherent vision and as such the game as a whole ended up being a bunch of contradictory ideas that aren't bad in isolation but do not mesh together well - it's why, for instance, the story is so juvenile and tries to appeals to kids, but the game itself is pretty hardcore SRPG gameplay which the average child probably won't enjoy.

I bring this up all the time because this is the fundamental problem with Engage in which all of the game's other issues can be traced back towards.

[u/mpyne → u/Palladiamorsdeus]

If they focus only on their existing fans the game series will die.

Awakening was successful in keeping FE alive in large part by accepting that they needed to do more to attract game players than just do an uprezzed GBA game.

They executed on that quite well, and it saved Fire Emblem.

That doesn't mean IS shouldn't be judged on what they actually do with their game design, but I can see why they wanted to a) do something that wasn't just "more 3H" but also b) might appeal additionally to new players.

I think they actually went the wrong direction for that, lol, but I don't blame them for trying something different.

[u/idkmanfiller → u/mpyne]

Awakening was by far the most marketed Fire Emblem compared to anything before it. Of course it sold more.

[u/mpyne → u/idkmanfiller]

If it were just about marketing, then Engage should have outsold Three Houses. The gameplay itself has to justify sales beyond the initial blip marketing might get you, which Awakening managed to do in spades.

[u/KyleMCarthage → u/ragunyans]

I say it's a tokusatsu show. Those shows are silly but do have an emotional core to them. Seriously, watch King Ohger and then play Engage back to back, you start to realize that Engage works really well as a Tokusatsu show given that the former is basically Engage but as a Tokusatsu show.

[u/Worried-Advisor-7054 → u/ragunyans]

I can't take the saturday morning cartoon defenders. Did they play engage? Here, I'll run through 80% of the dialogue.

"We need to go to x to get y. Huzzah, we have obtained y, now we must go to z."

Cartoons are interesting and funny. In Engage, characters just drone on and on and on and ON about the most banal things.