Be careful of the game’s permadeath mechanic, folks.
A new Fire Emblem mainline game has been released since the breakout title Three Houses (2019). Fire Emblem: Engage (for the purposes of this article, we will be shortening it to Engage) was supposed to be released last year, in time with the franchise’s anniversary. Well, regardless of the wait, it has finally reached the hands of long-time fans who are waiting for a game that caters to the old style of FE games.
While Engage has the option of not having your characters permanently die during battles, some players opt to get the old feeling of tension and frustration by picking the Classic mode. One player has shared his feelings in a long post on Escapist Magazine about this gameplay mechanic. It all starts with one character: Lyn.
Lyn, or Lyndis, is a main character or lord from the 2003 GBA game Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. In Engage, she is an Emblem that helps current units during battles. Emblems are previous characters in the franchise that you can equip into party members and give them new skills and abilities in battles.
One of the game’s mechanics is asking players to battle these Emblems in special paralogue maps. Framed as a simple trial for the current party (like a training bout), this player was feeling alright when his units, Alfred and Ivy, were defeated by Lyn. Why? Because usually, training maps don’t permanently kill off your characters.
Here’s what’s odd though: the permadeath mechanic kicked in. Sort of. Since Alfred and Ivy are “lords” in Engage, they remain plot relevant until the end. This means that the player was able to see them in the Somniel (a resting area for players), but they can no longer be used during battles, much to the player’s frustration. “So permadeath is a thing in the game unless the character is plot-essential,” he wrote.
But what frustrated him is the narrative weight behind their deaths. “[...]there’s the bigger issue of just what in the world Lyn was thinking by actually murdering her allies,” He explained. “[...] why then, in a simple mock battle, would Lyn actually try to kill her teammates?”
We don’t know either, good sir. Make sure to have multiple save files before heading into battle (or swap into casual mode) next time!
Image credit: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo