Jesse Huertas

STORY: Uninspired and riddled with clichés that sitting through it becomes a chore that no game should saddle its player with. It's Dark Dragon awakes and wants to end the world - with little to no deviation from that plot. I'd put spoiler warning on that, but that is all FE Engage aspires to be and for an anniversary game, it's rather sad that it chose to skimp out on the core element that keeps players...engaged. CHARACTERS: The emblem mechanic is troubling when you realize that the contemporary characters look and act shallow when compared to far superior heroes from yesteryear. In terms of character, motivations, designs and more, FE Engage reminds you of better times with better characters. The main 'lords' and their allies are ridden with overused character traits and silly mannerisms that its distracting. While I at times can appreciate the levity - its in no way subtle. None of these characters are grounded in a way that make you feel like the stakes matter. Overall, this game lags far behind in it the characters they've created and when juxtaposed against Emblems, both mainline and DLC - its even more apparent. The support systems is still a lacking means to develop characters and its even more shallow here. IS would do well to slim down considerably its playable characters in future iterations and focus on giving each character a resolvable character arc I do want to add a bit of appreciation to diversity that IS tried here. JRPGs and IS have been poor stewards of diversity, there are four playable black/brown characters. Two of which help drive the plot forward and two that are cannon fodder. While they slip into cynical stereotypes, credit is given to IS for at least trying to acknowledge that people of minority backgrounds exist. GAMEPLAY: This is where the game shines. Its the FE gameplay you know and love, refined and polished for next gen. Back is the weapon triangle, absent from 3H and some new weapons and 'arts' to play around with. The emblem mechanic offers a variety of strategic development and gameplay options and while you'll most likely end up building each character very similarly in terms of inherited skills, because they just work across the board - the game offers near limitless opportunity to test your creative juices. FE as a whole fails at giving players access to info to help shape their character and you'll find yourself using a guide to determining growth stats, which I find in poor taste in 2022/2023. Either way, FE gameplay has improved on an already established and near perfected gameplay loop found in 3H. Overall, this game is saved by the game play loop. The characters, both heroic and villainous, along with the story will have you wishing you were elsewhere. IS failed at its primary job and that's keeping you, engaged.

This game definitely through me for an unexpected loop. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is part interactive sci-fi visual/story art, part RTS and part tower defense with many well established anime tropes roped in for good measure. It centers on 13 protagonists and their branching storylines as they each attempt to save their "timelines" and save humanity from extinctions at the hand of "kaiju/deimos." The story is told in flashback sequence which all dovetail into the present day battle that is broken up into 31 battle sequences You can attack the story and battle at your pace, although sometimes story branches can't unlock until you view certain story segments or progress past a certain point of the RTS battles. Although the jump between exposition and battles is jarring, where I found myself getting through as much story as possible, and then do a grouping of battles, I think 31 is the sweet spot of battles for the game that don't make it overbearing. All the characters are fully realized and each of the 13 main characters and supporting characters are well fleshed out that its easy to find one or two to really be invested in, which I think are the hallmarks of good character building. The story is pretty complex and hard to grasp at times, so thankfully the game has every storyboard rewatchable and plenty of things to read and recap. For fans of sci-fi/matrix-esque, Vanillaware, anime and elements of point and click storytelling with RTS mixed in for good measure, this game is for you. I can confidently rank this as one of this console generation's best videogame stories to date. Enjoy!

This was a fantastic game, well worth a complete playthrough. It is a stealth/crafting game, that clearly takes its inspirations from The Last of Us with enough mechanical changes to feel fresh. It has an interesting story that has plenty of twists that'll keep you engaged. The game clocks in around 12-14 hours, which for me is a perfect amount of time for a game like this to not overstay its welcome. There is no post-game content and not much to do beyond the linear story - which is the main draw I think. For completionists - I cleared the platinum trophy without much trouble in about 16 hours. I do hope you all give it a try - I'd love to play a sequel at some point :)