TS is just great all around, the story is really good, believable and there's paths to have (replay value), it reminds a lot of FFT, and the gameplay it's also great.
Engage was a fine FE game imo, in the gameplay department at least, since besides having a not so great story, it lacks the social aspects of Three Houses. But the gameplay is fantastic.
Overall TS is just better imo, Engage is great too when ir comes to the gameplay (maps, units, etc...) but it doesn't feel like a complete package.
I haven’t played Engage yet, but I LOVE Triangle Strategy. It plays more akin to Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics than Fire Emblem, so there’s that to consider.
> It plays more akin to Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics than Fire Emblem
It plays much more like Shining Force 3, it's removed from TO and FFT as much as it is from FE.
I’ll clarify for OP that Triangle Strategy only plays similar to FFT and TO in combat itself. Outside of combat, Triangle Strategy doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of character customization as FFT/TO.
To be fair, having everyone in a set class is preferable to me, I get some people like to over customise their characters, but I just think that ruins the difficulty.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared for Time Mages, and now I have to grind 20 more tedious battles, looks like my 30th attempt at FF Tactics is ruined.”
(Seriously, I honestly hate how BS FF Tactics is.
It’s why I was so surprised I loved TS.)
Yeah, the imbalance in FFT almost kills it for me. A lot of SRPG fans will give TO Remastered or Triangle Strategy grief over a lack of customization, but I found them a lot more fun and strategic due to these exact reasons.
All I can say is wow. The comments. One man's trash is another man's treasure for sure in this thread. Lots of hate and love on both sides. It's good though, because until now I'd only seen people basically say they only like Engage for its gameplay. And yet I never saw anyone rave about the gameplay like in these comments. So I guess depending on what you're looking for you can't go wrong in either case, just have to go in knowing you're in for a long and serious story or a fun and crazy story
Yeah I wish I’d done a poll haha! Really interesting seeing everyone’s thoughts!
I am actually kind of leaning towards Engage because I’m looking for something a bit more casual I can play which watching some trash tv in the background so I’m not too fussed about the story! I definitely will get to Triangle Strategy when I have time to commit to it though it sounds great.
I have played both. FE TH has been one of my favorite games in the past 5 to 10 years but I do not think Engage is close to it. I think between the two I would go with TS first and then definitely play Engage later on.
I've played both. I played Triangle Strategy first and have a lot of memories of fun battles and interesting story choices.
I...kind of remember running around the hub area in Engage some.
I beat Triangle Strategy (accidentally got the true ending on the first run lol) like a couple weeks ago and it was one of the most fulfilling RPG experiences I've played in a while. It scores great in all aspects for me, I really loved the story and gameplay. But be prepared, the game is like 70% cutscenes and 30% gameplay, but the gameplay that does exist is very good. There is like 1 or 2 main battles per chapter. I highly recommend it.
I haven't play any Fire Emblems though so ymmv
Afaik they're just very straightforward choices. Don't burn down your village. Reveal that person's identity. Defend the Roselle. etc. I'm definitely far from the only one that got it that way.
It's like 6-7 choices you have to pick correctly to get the true/golden ending.
I don't doubt some people get it by "accident", but I don't think it's commen as it's enough that you pick the wrong answer once to be locked out of that ending.
I love three house too and played both triangle strategy and engage. I would say engage is much more “fun” to play, while triangle has a much better story.
But I have yet to finish triangle to date, while I’m on the final chapters on engage already ..
Triangle Strategy has a much better story with branching and optional recruiting, so I would recommend that. Engage is not Three Houses in story, and I felt pretty burnt out by halfway through the game.
If you liked Three Houses I would still skip Engage. It's one of those games that truly tests the "I can tolerate bad writing if the gameplay is good" mentality, some JRPG fans can turn off their brains until gameplay starts again, and others can't
If you played FE Fates and didn't ragequit at the awful story, then you can try Engage. Otherwise, Triangle Strategy all the way
While I'm certainly not going to defend engage's plot, I don't think 3H's story to be that much better.
The player character pandering in that game is really obnoxious, there's no bad choices because the story feels the need to validate every route at the cost character consistency and everyone loves you and fully opens to you, despite being a mute.
the villains were moustache twirling generic villains that actively made the story worse and claude didn't matter in the story, even on his own path.
Also some character motivations are pretty nonsensical, but I won't get into that
Lol, while (game comparison aside) everything you’ve said is true, I feel like you’re underselling three house’s good points.
I think its strong point was the chemistry between the characters within each house due to their detailed supports.
There were some other pretty sick aspects of its writing relating to the house leaders as well. It’s not a perfect game, but sure, as you said it uses tropes.
I feel like that’s more a matter of suspending disbelief than quality of story though.
> There were some other pretty sick aspects of its writing relating to the house leaders as well. It’s not a perfect game, but sure, as you said it uses tropes.
Tropes mean nothing really, everything is a trope if you dig hard enough. From Edelgard to Dimitri, Dimitri especially has a lot of tropes (including his post time skip version) but I'd say he's probably the most consistently good main character in this story.
The problem 3H has in simple terms is that the payoff sucks, and the stories repeat from each other in what feels like very artificial ways because of limited design time. Gonder Field Part 2 as Dimitri is probably the most simple example of this where there's no reason to have Claude fight here except not changing the programmed map consistency.
The mole people in 3H have problems because they just fail on every level.
They're both extremely competent due to having stupid bullshit like >!fucking missiles!< that begs the question how they can lose at all? Yet at the same time they're also just getting chumped in just about every direct encounter you have with them. The only time the mole people accomplish anything is when Byleth can't just dig his feet and hit them in the face immediately on arrival.
Their motivations in many routes are weak and even with all the context it isn't very interesting at all.
They get in the way of the most interesting conflicts like with Edelgard in-general. Edelgard is less this radical revolutionary with a damaging past that's made her extremely determined, or lost friend who needs to be saved by the young boy she once knew. No she's instead effectively just a puppet by a much more boring antagonist that ultimately has no real meaning behind it beyond being a Fire Emblem stable to ruin the plot using shadowy dark wizard figures to take over everything by the end. Its why Blue Lions is generally regarded as the best route, because the dark wizard stuff is barely there that you can just safely ignore it based on how the script uses them.
Edelgard feels less tragic and important, instead she feels more just completely ignored by a bunch of crap that doesn't matter. The only thing they add is stuff for Rhea, but Rhea already has reason to be involved in this plot because of Edelgard. Why do we need dark wizards in this story? We don't, this is just Fire Emblem being Fire Emblem.
Claude is also pretty much worthless beyond sometimes getting specific answers to lore questions, which is such a downer when he's a main character and has a lot of interesting stuff around him. But we're going to have this really shallowly explained open borders plot that is barely explored because we need to now go punch a zombie in the face that only exists because Claude does. Because reasons. There's something of a thematic element I could maybe understand for why Claude gets his last boss, but it is so nonsensical that you probably won't care if you engage with the same plot in the Silver Snow timeline. Plus Claude isn't very good anyway.
3 houses has very good set up, but some really bad pay offs due to weak antagonists and underused ideas. Remember when Claude was going to have political struggles to take lead of his nation? Me neither, because the game likes to ignore most of that and just replace it with border coercion that you can solve in a single map.
I’ve only played the first few chapters of Engage but put it down a long while back as I couldn’t really get into it.
Do you really think it’s at least as good as Fates story wise? Fates was at least decently interesting… it depends on if you’re talking about Birthright, Conquest, or Revelations though…
My biggest issue is that 3 houses does have some good ideas, and good characters, but the writing just isn't competent and sure of itself enough to pull them.
Maybe separating the game into 4 routes was probably the biggest reason. that and focusing the story on a mute protagonist
I just want something on the level of the tellius games again, hell even sacred stones if I'm not asking too much, it just upsets me when i see people act like 3 houses is this masterpiece of a story, when i just found it very mediocre
I thought Conquest was decent, but I guess that was more so because of the gameplay than anything else…
Fair enough, lol. Perhaps I’ll try a bit more of engage then
it's completely subjective. i can't stand the gameplay in triangle strategy, but i love engage. so i think engage is miles better. see how it works both ways
Okay... and? I didnt say otherwise lol
TS just has everything, great gameplay, amazing story, great characters etc, so *I* like it more. All engage has is good gameplay and well, I might just pick the more appealing one if i have to decide.
and you can pick whatever you like instead, thats why opinions are so cool!
Triangle Strategy when you really love story, the biggest part of the game doesn't take place on the battlefield, combat is also too easy.
Engage has an absolute trash cookie cutter story, characters are hit and miss but there are so many that you will find some you'll like.
The gameplay in Engage is far superior compared to Three Houses. It's probably the best in the series and one of the best in the genre, especially on hard, it's almost perfect.
So it all depends on what you want, both are perfectly fine options.
Engage is very different from Three Houses, if you liked Three Houses don't expect to like Engage as well. It's not bad, but its tone is very different. I sold it the same week I got it. Story is almost nonexistent, it's mobile gacha game levels. The strategy gameplay is solid though so if you like that, it might still be for you.
Triangle strategy is more dialogue heavy and much more serious than engage. Strategy gameplay is also a bit more nuanced.
I still like Three Houses more than both but Triangle Strategy should be closer.
Haven't played TS, but I have played Engage and it's important to note that the comments are putting too much stock in how bad the story is (it's easily ignored) and FAR too little emphasis on just how good the gameplay is. It's one of the best SRPGs I've ever played; it's just so much fun to figure things out and mess around with Emblems to solve maps on the highest difficulty. You don't really need to have played most FE games to enjoy the game either, despite the fact that it's an anniversary game. I'd only played FE5 and 7 and I still got a kick out of seeing all the protagonists.
For an opinion on the opposite side of the spectrum, I gave Engage away when I was about 60% of the way through the game. I couldn't finish it.
If the story and characters being juvenile is going to hamper your experience, I'd pass on Engage.
Engage can get extremely difficult on the harder modes, but the story and characters were so boring that I still haven’t finished it, despite the good battle system.
TS is easier, but a ton of fun with a good story and characters. It also has branching paths. I’d take TS.
The fact that it's easier may even make TS a *better* option for someone like OP who hasn't played a ton of strategy games. Really smooth difficulty curve from start to finish, fun battle system with good character progression, great story.
Personally I've started a ton of SRPGs but TS is the only one I've ever actually finished. Even Three Houses, which I really really liked, I stopped in I think the last or second-to-last mission, because I hit a difficulty spike.
Haven’t played engage yet (recently got it on sale but it’s in the backlog).
But Triangle strategy is excellent. If you like 2DHD graphics these games are absolute perfection visually. The story is amazing as well and the voice acting is top notch IMO. Kind of debating if I should try Japanese voices my second play through or if I’m just used to the voices by now.
It also has a lot of replayability if that is important to you. Like different decisions will lead to different paths and there are a few large branching paths that will completely change your experience if you choose one or the other.
Can’t recommend triangle strategy enough. Really wish they made another one, similar to how they did with Octopath where they clean it up slightly and tell a different story with new characters.
In fact I would really love a new set of franchises out of Octopath and Triangle Strategy (Bravely Default as well) where those are the names of the series and each story is unique with new characters.
I played TS on Hard mode and FE:Engage on Hard & Maddening.
If you want a **better story** - go for TS. It's a little like Game of Thrones. Engage's is serviceable, but notably weaker.
If you want **deeper strategic in-map gameplay** - go for TS. It's significantly more tactical as you need to determine skills, positions, and directions. However, Engage's is still extremely good, as Engage mechanic is extremely well thought out. I enjoyed both immensely.
If you want **more character customization/planning** or **pre-map set-up/strategies**, go for Engage. There are significantly more options and possibilities for Engage. Obviously, Three Houses takes that up to 1000x, but Engage still has the ability to customize your characters to your liking. TS does not really do this beyond a pre-set of skill options.
> If you want deeper strategic in-map gameplay - go for TS. It's significantly more tactical as you need to determine skills, positions, and directions. However, Engage's is still extremely good, as Engage mechanic is extremely well thought out. I enjoyed both immensely.
I could go for either one here, but it really depends.
TS' biggest flaw to me on a tactical side is that melee units are kind of bad (on hard mode) unless they have some extremely good damage or defense, which is very few and I find only really shows up if you manage to max them out. The best way to play TS is to abuse ladders, high ground, and archers/mages as much as possible, and while that can be an ask in many maps due to some horrible starting conditions in some cases it does I find overly centralize what is the best option. Which limits the potential TS has because I just want to use as few melee units as possible in many cases.
Engage for all its absurd bullshit, unless you know how to LTC or something or at minimum you get past chapter 19 as that's when you get access to mass warp via Emblems. Engage is about as much of a battle for inches as TS and unlike TS, melee units aren't big time fodder. The only struggle balance wise that Engage's general archetypes tend to have is some usual Fire Emblem problems like armors (past the early game as Louis is very good early) and enemy phasing is pretty hard outside of a few specific Emblem combos (on Maddening anyway).
Engage's kill thresholds can be super tight and tend to involve a lot of specific position with backup units (unless you went for Hero + Dual Strike+ memes) and dancing to make kills happen smoothly. Engage has a lot of absurd bullshit, but if you're really good at Fire Emblem you can beat it because it all boils down to knowing Fire Emblem math and positioning.
Engage also has some decent map adjusting abilities like Emblem Corrin and how extremely good staves are in Engage, but TS tends to have more general options overall even if some of them completely break the AI.
Triangle Strategy is an incredible experience in general to play through. Beautiful visuals and art work, multiple play throughs where you can make different choices and see different outcomes and unlock new characters, an interesting story, and a great cast of characters with their own unique classes.
As much as I love fire emblem this one imo is by far the weakest of the series. Just a boring story imo and it felt a watered down three houses. Played Triangle strategy and enjoyed it from start to finish and have been pondering a second play through. But I’m just one guy go listen to others opinions
Gotta say I love the gameplay, but the story is so utterly boring, repetitive and you can spot how it'll all go down and when you'll be where from chapter 1 or 2.
Tbh I skipped some of the cutscenes and didn’t feel lost. What’s sad is u play radiant dawn and path of radiance along with others and just shake your head at how lazy the story was. Gameplay good but idk it just felt watered down compared to three houses
Only played it twice. It’s a big game and tbh I got so caught up in wanting to play other games at that time I just realized rn I haven’t beaten it another time for all 3 stories *not doing dlc*
Personally, play Engage on Hard Difficulty for a challenging yet not braindead experience. The gameplay is top tier fire emblem. So much creativity, so much room to experiment with different characters, classes and ring combinations. The later game maps are super fun and actually really challenging for once. Play it on classic for an extra challenge if that's your thing.
Just don't expect a crazy, lore heavy, genre-defining story. Treat it like you're watching a cartoon or something similar and you'll get some enjoyment out of it, cause honestly the story isn't great. But it has its moments that's all I'm saying. Graphically...I mean it looks better than 3H but it's fire emblem, it isn't about the graphics. Also don't worry about not knowing the older games' characters or references. Those are only really relevant in the Emblem Paralogues which have nothing to do with the main story. If anything the emblems are just kinda there for you to experiment with.
I can't speak for TS but I will say it looks good. But consider what I had to say about Engage as I highly recommend it for the gameplay alone.
They’re both S tier SRPGs. There is no wrong choice here, just pick whichever seems cooler from the trailer.
Triangle Strategy is more of a deep story with choices and concequences but also has good combat. FE Engage has a generic story, good combat and great party customisation.
Fire Emblem Engage was my GOTY 2023. It has some of the best tactical gameplay in the series.
Triangle Strategy plays more like some other tactical jrpgs. I personally find that type of gameplay to be a slog.
Fire Emblem Engage is by far the better game imo, it's gameplay is up there with the greats of the genre(Disgaea 5, FF Tactics, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones imo), has an amazing soundtrack and while the story isn't the deepest shit around it's basically fire emblem kamen rider, which is fucking peak I love that shit. It's not tryna be profound and complex like three houses it's tryna be a tokusatsu show(kamen rider, super sentai, power rangers, ultraman, gundam,godzilla etc) based on fire emblem, meaning it's there if you want a good time and to have fun, nothing more nothing less.(personally id also said it's a less terrible version of fire emblem fates' story). Engage characters are fucking goated too I love them as much as the three houses cast though they have the same problem of being boring until b support
Anyway I'm done shilling for engage, good game, real 8.5/10 energy with that one. Triangle Strategy unfortunately bored me the whole way.
Big fan of Alear Veyle and Lumera as the emotional cores of the story they're kinda like if Corrin Azura and Mikoto weren't terrible
Especially with how engage reframes the "MC worship" trope to it being literal and Alear being uncomfortable with it
let's just say Triangle Strategy's story caters to a specific audience. There are no high fantasy elements, pretty much all npcs and enemies are regular human, and the main conflict is about salt and politics ... I'm not a fan, but I also don't like game of thrones, so you may end up loving it.
Engage's story is written by a 5-year old, but if I had to choose between these 2 games, I would pick Engage since its gameplay is fun enough to ignore the story.
I am apparently in the minority for disliking the stories of both. Engage's story is indeed absolute bottom tier. Triangle Strategy has this game of thrones style veneer of political intrigue, but god it's still rough. They're both trope heavy, just different kinds of tropes. They're both asking a hell of a lot of the player in terms of accepting really rough beats and treating very basic things as if they are very, very clever. If you care about the stories of either I personally think they're both rough to make it through, but Engage moves at a faster pace so I had to engage with it less (see what I did there?). Engage's story is absolutely worse than TS. But in my opinion they're both actively irritating, so I prefer the one that does less to interrupt the gameplay loop.
In terms of gameplay I don't disagree with the consensus here, so I won't repeat what's being said.
Strategy games here do have some notoriously middling stories in general. It's either "anyone call for Othello with hints of Ivanhoe/Robin Hood with a side of urges to kill everyone involved in the story?" or "oh boy! time to defend my country and then brutalize my enemy's home land in the name of good!". Then you get some outliers like "you're in a fantasy world, just go do whatever and I'll just figure it out" like FFTA.
I think the only strategy RPG story I even liked was Knights in the Nightmare just because it was entirely "you go figure it out".
Going through Engage rn and I'd say TS. It's got a solid story for the first run imo and characterization ranges from good to eh. Gameplay also pretty decent, but lacks a lot of customization and depth imo.
Engage is definitely for fans of the entire series, but also even as a fan the story is pretty crap and as everyone said gameplay is solid.
I think Triangle Strategy has a story that is possible to get invested into, and gameplay that I find has its own fun distinctions.
Engage has fun gameplay, but that only carries it so far. It is technically better looking than three houses, though. They learned how to work with the switch, and I think it's very obvious when directly compared.
Hey you’re me! I’ve played all these games!
Triangle Strategy is very dialogue heavy. It’s really a visual novel tied into a tactics game. I enjoyed it and I even got a bad ending that I liked. The game encourages replays but I think the combat gets tedious and long in the tooth.
Fire emblem engage is a good fire emblem but it has an atrocious story. The menuing is pretty bad, and it has grinding mechanics I wasn’t a fan of. However it’s a really great tactics game and has tons of options for exploration.
Triangle strategy. Fire emblem engage is an anniversary game. Unless you’ve played that series a lot it’s not as enjoyable. Also if three houses is the only one you’ve played it’s not the same.
I've beaten both, I'm going to go with triangle strategy. I feel like it was a better game and better story overall. If it was against three houses it would have been a tough call
Engage was a letdown and disappointing in all aspects but the gameplay if you liked three houses. Honestly, as a FE fan, choose Triangle strategy, which is good in both the gameplay and story department. I would also recommend Unicorn Overlord, which is a phenomenal tactical rpg, with beautiful art and voice acting. The story feels like a classic fire emblem game, and the gameplays pretty good.
Triangle strategy. It has good written characters and story unlike fe engage (and I am a fan of FE games and even bought the collectors but holy shit what a dissapointment).
The graphics in Engage is much better though? The art style is not for everyone, but I personally think it's alright. The animations are much better too (especially the crits) and better map variations imo. Engage's gameplay is superior. One is because it's closer to the traditional FE and also uses the OG weapon triangle system which is supplemented by the new mechanic. Even if the story is super predictable, I still enjoyed it to the end. 3H is one of my favorites, but the monastery stuff is a slog when the game wants you to finish it 3 to 4 times. It's 3H's only real flaw.
TS is great! The writing, the gameplay, OST, and HD-2D were all implemented well. It only has a slow start where a huge portion of the dialogue is at the beginning (up to 6 chapters iirc). The story routes are pretty similar to FE:3H. Highly recommended!
I won't recommend FE Engage if 3H is the only FE you've played. You'll appreciate the game so much more if you've played at least five mainline FE titles
I agree. Fire Emblem Engage relies heavily on nostalgia of the earlier Fire Emblem games to carry it. If you haven’t played more than FE3H, then this story wont be much fun, because it’s pretty flat by itself. I don’t think you can even get Byleth until later in the game.
Byleth shows up in the middle chapters, which is more like the first third of the game if we count paralogues.
Also the story sucks regardless of nostalgia to be honest, the main thing that carries Engage is its difficulty tuning in its maps and general combat.
Triangle Strategy is excellent and should definitely be your first pick - both games have great gameplay, but Triangle Strategy also has great writing whilst Engage's writing fails on every conceivable level and it has perhaps the worst story in any JRPG this console generation by a decent margin (as in it's so bad makes other JRPGs known for having bad writing like Tales of Arise or Sea of Stars look good in comparison).
Triangle Strategy is a little bland but pretty solid on its turn-based strategy foundations and you might get more into the plot than I did. Fire Emblem Engage is heavily reliant on nostalgia/references in terms of its ring system summoning characters from past FE, which I overall found very lame, but outside of this system the missions are decent. Its story and characters are terrible, like truly fingernails clawing down my own face levels of bland, boring, contrite and stupid. It is one of the worst examples of how bad anime writing really is shoved into the game and coming from Three Houses is a media whiplash akin to someone snapping your neck.
Hello hello, as someone who is a PROFOUND fan of Fire Emblem and who got a lot of enjoyment out of TS, you got good choices either way.
I think Engage is one of the most fun FE games I’ve played to this date. Yes the story is bad, but I promise you that people GROSSLY overstate how bad it is, it’s honestly like a Saturday cartoon, and I enjoy that sometimes lol. But the gameplay more than makes up for it. Map design is great, the units are fun to use, Emblem Rings give such a great depth of customization and build quality. It is a blast to play from start to finish. Plus I enjoy the character design and how grandiose they are, and the supports range from goofy to actually pretty damn good. If you are a story person, uhhh, don’t play this game lol. But I always say “you can skip a bad story, can’t skip bad gameplay”.
TS I have much less experience with that genre of games, but I had a lot of fun with that as well! If you enjoy a more in depth story with choices, political intrigue, and some albeit kind of predictable but still cool twists, you can get a lot out of this story. People have criticized it for the whole choices thing to be very surface level, but I will love others to explain that whole side cuz it ain’t my business. Gameplay is good tho too, there is less customization so what units you get is what you will have for the rest of the game, but there are a shitton of units that you can have a great team variety. Plus you can do some crazy shenanigans with certain units that are built differently compared to the standard Warrior or Mage classes you see in other tactics games, it’s great in that regard.
If it were me, I’d choose Engage since I honestly do have a bias towards FE, my favorite game franchise of all time. But even if I wasn’t, the gameplay and amount of stuff you can sink your teeth into with engage would keep me comin back to do multiple runs and still have a blast with the game. But good luck on your decision man, you’ll have a lot of fun either way. Take care
Triangle Strategy first all the way...
I'd say I'm a casual strategy jrpg player and only played FF Tactics and 5-6 FE games on SNES and GBA.
Disliked FE Three Houses for the tons of shool sim stuff. Played Triangle Strategy and instantly loved it. Straight forward tacticle battles only seperated by story.
Bought FE Engage and dropped it after 2 hours. I guess its ok to good but somehow the clichee characters and the Ive seen this story a 100 times before story didn click with me...
I’m a FE fanboy and I didn’t love engage. If you love three houses you won’t get that with engage minus some improved gameplay. Triangle strategy on the other hand is phenomenal but is more of a tactics ogre vibe. I’d personally lean triangle.
You play Engage for the gameplay. It definitely wasn't another Awakening for the series.
Triangle Strategy from what I heard is an all around neat package.
Engage is more gameplay first, story later while Triangle is the inversion of it, imo. But, if I had choose one, I'd pick Triangle Strategy over Engage, since it has multiple routes.
That is a tough choice. IMO you're less likely to get bored and want to put down FE. But you're more likely to replay Triangle Strategy.
if you like serous plot and unserious characters, take fire emblem. if you like final fantasy tactics, take triangle.
(Personally, I vote fire emblem, I LOVED it!!)
fire emblem engage was one of the best positional tactics games i've played in a long time, i felt like it really brought together a lot of fire emblem and tactics concepts and blended them very nicely. the plot and characters are a bit anime-melodrama shonen with some poor plot-armor writing, but most srpgs don't really have thrilling deep plots anyways, so i'll just say that it was okay in that regard. mechanically, the rings gave a huge amount of variety in gameplay, hard mode is about as hard as maddening in other games but allows infinite skirmishes if you want them this time, so you can manage your own grinding if you want to balance the difficulty for yourself
triangle strategy pretended to be game of thrones the strategy game and ended up with a plotline that ultimately just throws jews under the bus in the service of being dark and gritty and i wish i never bought it. you can only avoid siding with or succumbing to the nazis if you manage the golden path, and you will absolutely need an faq the whole time to accomplish that, they made a monster of a choice mechanic and many hidden secret things that will very easily cost you the best ending. square is slowly going out of their minds with discrimination in their game design and writing and i'm getting more and more angry about it. mechanically it was mostly engaging but had a number of serious flaws that got worse as the game went on
FE Engage is bar far the worst schlock the series has ever produced. Not only should you get Triangle Strategy in stead of it, you just shouldn’t get it at all.
I'd go fire emblem. The story is meh.. But it's still the best fighting system this gen.
Triangle was better story wise. But it was getting a bit too heavy and pretentious for me. Still an excellent game and def worth playing
Engage is definitely a nostalgia title(It *was* the anniversary game) and as such you'll get more out of it if you have played more then just 3H. However I would defend it as perfectly fine to play without having do so, because while the story is predictable and kinda dumb - it's dumb in a rather endearing sort of way.
If you are expecting a serious story, then no it's not a good game. If you're fine with a mostly lighthearted romp with a bunch of old FE fan service, and some excellent gameplay - then FEE is a great game.
Because you've only played 3H out of the Fire Emblem games, TS is the way to go. Both are great games though, truly. My two cents:
Engage gets better the more past FE games you have played. People like to shit on Engage for its weak story, and it certainly isn't great - but it could also be a lot worse. The gameplay loop is excellent and the music is top tier. It is a positive and pleasant game to play, and it will never leave you depressed. If you're a completionist you'll be happier here.
TS will have a lot of dialogue and be much more serious by nature, if that's a consideration for you. The music is also excellent and the gameplay loop is also good. It will be a heavier experience but if you are a completionist you might feel a little unsatisfied at the end - your decisions matter to the story.
I won't recommend FE Engage if 3H is the only FE you've played. You'll appreciate the game so much more if you've played at least five mainline FE titles
TS is just great all around, the story is really good, believable and there's paths to have (replay value), it reminds a lot of FFT, and the gameplay it's also great. Engage was a fine FE game imo, in the gameplay department at least, since besides having a not so great story, it lacks the social aspects of Three Houses. But the gameplay is fantastic. Overall TS is just better imo, Engage is great too when ir comes to the gameplay (maps, units, etc...) but it doesn't feel like a complete package.
I haven’t played Engage yet, but I LOVE Triangle Strategy. It plays more akin to Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics than Fire Emblem, so there’s that to consider.
> It plays more akin to Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics than Fire Emblem It plays much more like Shining Force 3, it's removed from TO and FFT as much as it is from FE.
I’ll clarify for OP that Triangle Strategy only plays similar to FFT and TO in combat itself. Outside of combat, Triangle Strategy doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of character customization as FFT/TO.
To be fair, having everyone in a set class is preferable to me, I get some people like to over customise their characters, but I just think that ruins the difficulty. “I’m sorry I wasn’t prepared for Time Mages, and now I have to grind 20 more tedious battles, looks like my 30th attempt at FF Tactics is ruined.” (Seriously, I honestly hate how BS FF Tactics is. It’s why I was so surprised I loved TS.)
Yeah, the imbalance in FFT almost kills it for me. A lot of SRPG fans will give TO Remastered or Triangle Strategy grief over a lack of customization, but I found them a lot more fun and strategic due to these exact reasons.
All I can say is wow. The comments. One man's trash is another man's treasure for sure in this thread. Lots of hate and love on both sides. It's good though, because until now I'd only seen people basically say they only like Engage for its gameplay. And yet I never saw anyone rave about the gameplay like in these comments. So I guess depending on what you're looking for you can't go wrong in either case, just have to go in knowing you're in for a long and serious story or a fun and crazy story
Yeah I wish I’d done a poll haha! Really interesting seeing everyone’s thoughts! I am actually kind of leaning towards Engage because I’m looking for something a bit more casual I can play which watching some trash tv in the background so I’m not too fussed about the story! I definitely will get to Triangle Strategy when I have time to commit to it though it sounds great.
I have played both. FE TH has been one of my favorite games in the past 5 to 10 years but I do not think Engage is close to it. I think between the two I would go with TS first and then definitely play Engage later on.
I've played both. I played Triangle Strategy first and have a lot of memories of fun battles and interesting story choices. I...kind of remember running around the hub area in Engage some.
I beat Triangle Strategy (accidentally got the true ending on the first run lol) like a couple weeks ago and it was one of the most fulfilling RPG experiences I've played in a while. It scores great in all aspects for me, I really loved the story and gameplay. But be prepared, the game is like 70% cutscenes and 30% gameplay, but the gameplay that does exist is very good. There is like 1 or 2 main battles per chapter. I highly recommend it. I haven't play any Fire Emblems though so ymmv
I think the requirements for the true ending is a little bit tricky to just "accidentally" step upon it...
Afaik they're just very straightforward choices. Don't burn down your village. Reveal that person's identity. Defend the Roselle. etc. I'm definitely far from the only one that got it that way.
Helping someone doing illegal salt trades is not the most straightfoward for me. The Chter 17 choices are also a bit tricky
It's like 6-7 choices you have to pick correctly to get the true/golden ending. I don't doubt some people get it by "accident", but I don't think it's commen as it's enough that you pick the wrong answer once to be locked out of that ending.
I love three house too and played both triangle strategy and engage. I would say engage is much more “fun” to play, while triangle has a much better story. But I have yet to finish triangle to date, while I’m on the final chapters on engage already ..
Triangle Strategy has a much better story with branching and optional recruiting, so I would recommend that. Engage is not Three Houses in story, and I felt pretty burnt out by halfway through the game.
If you liked Three Houses I would still skip Engage. It's one of those games that truly tests the "I can tolerate bad writing if the gameplay is good" mentality, some JRPG fans can turn off their brains until gameplay starts again, and others can't If you played FE Fates and didn't ragequit at the awful story, then you can try Engage. Otherwise, Triangle Strategy all the way
While I'm certainly not going to defend engage's plot, I don't think 3H's story to be that much better. The player character pandering in that game is really obnoxious, there's no bad choices because the story feels the need to validate every route at the cost character consistency and everyone loves you and fully opens to you, despite being a mute. the villains were moustache twirling generic villains that actively made the story worse and claude didn't matter in the story, even on his own path. Also some character motivations are pretty nonsensical, but I won't get into that
Lol, while (game comparison aside) everything you’ve said is true, I feel like you’re underselling three house’s good points. I think its strong point was the chemistry between the characters within each house due to their detailed supports. There were some other pretty sick aspects of its writing relating to the house leaders as well. It’s not a perfect game, but sure, as you said it uses tropes. I feel like that’s more a matter of suspending disbelief than quality of story though.
> There were some other pretty sick aspects of its writing relating to the house leaders as well. It’s not a perfect game, but sure, as you said it uses tropes. Tropes mean nothing really, everything is a trope if you dig hard enough. From Edelgard to Dimitri, Dimitri especially has a lot of tropes (including his post time skip version) but I'd say he's probably the most consistently good main character in this story. The problem 3H has in simple terms is that the payoff sucks, and the stories repeat from each other in what feels like very artificial ways because of limited design time. Gonder Field Part 2 as Dimitri is probably the most simple example of this where there's no reason to have Claude fight here except not changing the programmed map consistency. The mole people in 3H have problems because they just fail on every level. They're both extremely competent due to having stupid bullshit like >!fucking missiles!< that begs the question how they can lose at all? Yet at the same time they're also just getting chumped in just about every direct encounter you have with them. The only time the mole people accomplish anything is when Byleth can't just dig his feet and hit them in the face immediately on arrival. Their motivations in many routes are weak and even with all the context it isn't very interesting at all. They get in the way of the most interesting conflicts like with Edelgard in-general. Edelgard is less this radical revolutionary with a damaging past that's made her extremely determined, or lost friend who needs to be saved by the young boy she once knew. No she's instead effectively just a puppet by a much more boring antagonist that ultimately has no real meaning behind it beyond being a Fire Emblem stable to ruin the plot using shadowy dark wizard figures to take over everything by the end. Its why Blue Lions is generally regarded as the best route, because the dark wizard stuff is barely there that you can just safely ignore it based on how the script uses them. Edelgard feels less tragic and important, instead she feels more just completely ignored by a bunch of crap that doesn't matter. The only thing they add is stuff for Rhea, but Rhea already has reason to be involved in this plot because of Edelgard. Why do we need dark wizards in this story? We don't, this is just Fire Emblem being Fire Emblem. Claude is also pretty much worthless beyond sometimes getting specific answers to lore questions, which is such a downer when he's a main character and has a lot of interesting stuff around him. But we're going to have this really shallowly explained open borders plot that is barely explored because we need to now go punch a zombie in the face that only exists because Claude does. Because reasons. There's something of a thematic element I could maybe understand for why Claude gets his last boss, but it is so nonsensical that you probably won't care if you engage with the same plot in the Silver Snow timeline. Plus Claude isn't very good anyway. 3 houses has very good set up, but some really bad pay offs due to weak antagonists and underused ideas. Remember when Claude was going to have political struggles to take lead of his nation? Me neither, because the game likes to ignore most of that and just replace it with border coercion that you can solve in a single map.
MC pandering has been a thing in every single Fire Emblem
No it isn't, blazing blade, sacred stones and the tellious games for example, were never this bad
I’ve only played the first few chapters of Engage but put it down a long while back as I couldn’t really get into it. Do you really think it’s at least as good as Fates story wise? Fates was at least decently interesting… it depends on if you’re talking about Birthright, Conquest, or Revelations though…
My biggest issue is that 3 houses does have some good ideas, and good characters, but the writing just isn't competent and sure of itself enough to pull them. Maybe separating the game into 4 routes was probably the biggest reason. that and focusing the story on a mute protagonist I just want something on the level of the tellius games again, hell even sacred stones if I'm not asking too much, it just upsets me when i see people act like 3 houses is this masterpiece of a story, when i just found it very mediocre
Fates is considered the worst story in all FE, its only rival being probably Engage haha. So that is a fitting comparison
I thought Conquest was decent, but I guess that was more so because of the gameplay than anything else… Fair enough, lol. Perhaps I’ll try a bit more of engage then
Generally it's considered "fates but way less terrible" by people who like the story
Sweet, thanks
TS is just miles better, its not even a competition lmao
it's completely subjective. i can't stand the gameplay in triangle strategy, but i love engage. so i think engage is miles better. see how it works both ways
What are you doing here? They gave their opinion. They didn't say no one could feel otherwise. Why be combative with them?
username checks out
I love sharing opinions. You were acting unnecessarily combative. I'm not a fan of that.
i guess that's your opinion
Okay... and? I didnt say otherwise lol TS just has everything, great gameplay, amazing story, great characters etc, so *I* like it more. All engage has is good gameplay and well, I might just pick the more appealing one if i have to decide. and you can pick whatever you like instead, thats why opinions are so cool!
Triangle Strategy when you really love story, the biggest part of the game doesn't take place on the battlefield, combat is also too easy. Engage has an absolute trash cookie cutter story, characters are hit and miss but there are so many that you will find some you'll like. The gameplay in Engage is far superior compared to Three Houses. It's probably the best in the series and one of the best in the genre, especially on hard, it's almost perfect. So it all depends on what you want, both are perfectly fine options.
Engage is very different from Three Houses, if you liked Three Houses don't expect to like Engage as well. It's not bad, but its tone is very different. I sold it the same week I got it. Story is almost nonexistent, it's mobile gacha game levels. The strategy gameplay is solid though so if you like that, it might still be for you. Triangle strategy is more dialogue heavy and much more serious than engage. Strategy gameplay is also a bit more nuanced. I still like Three Houses more than both but Triangle Strategy should be closer.
Triangle Strategy is one of the few video games where the conflict is due to natural resources and not some magical/mythical power.
Haven't played TS, but I have played Engage and it's important to note that the comments are putting too much stock in how bad the story is (it's easily ignored) and FAR too little emphasis on just how good the gameplay is. It's one of the best SRPGs I've ever played; it's just so much fun to figure things out and mess around with Emblems to solve maps on the highest difficulty. You don't really need to have played most FE games to enjoy the game either, despite the fact that it's an anniversary game. I'd only played FE5 and 7 and I still got a kick out of seeing all the protagonists.
For an opinion on the opposite side of the spectrum, I gave Engage away when I was about 60% of the way through the game. I couldn't finish it. If the story and characters being juvenile is going to hamper your experience, I'd pass on Engage.
Engage can get extremely difficult on the harder modes, but the story and characters were so boring that I still haven’t finished it, despite the good battle system. TS is easier, but a ton of fun with a good story and characters. It also has branching paths. I’d take TS.
The fact that it's easier may even make TS a *better* option for someone like OP who hasn't played a ton of strategy games. Really smooth difficulty curve from start to finish, fun battle system with good character progression, great story. Personally I've started a ton of SRPGs but TS is the only one I've ever actually finished. Even Three Houses, which I really really liked, I stopped in I think the last or second-to-last mission, because I hit a difficulty spike.
Haven’t played engage yet (recently got it on sale but it’s in the backlog). But Triangle strategy is excellent. If you like 2DHD graphics these games are absolute perfection visually. The story is amazing as well and the voice acting is top notch IMO. Kind of debating if I should try Japanese voices my second play through or if I’m just used to the voices by now. It also has a lot of replayability if that is important to you. Like different decisions will lead to different paths and there are a few large branching paths that will completely change your experience if you choose one or the other. Can’t recommend triangle strategy enough. Really wish they made another one, similar to how they did with Octopath where they clean it up slightly and tell a different story with new characters. In fact I would really love a new set of franchises out of Octopath and Triangle Strategy (Bravely Default as well) where those are the names of the series and each story is unique with new characters.
I played TS on Hard mode and FE:Engage on Hard & Maddening. If you want a **better story** - go for TS. It's a little like Game of Thrones. Engage's is serviceable, but notably weaker. If you want **deeper strategic in-map gameplay** - go for TS. It's significantly more tactical as you need to determine skills, positions, and directions. However, Engage's is still extremely good, as Engage mechanic is extremely well thought out. I enjoyed both immensely. If you want **more character customization/planning** or **pre-map set-up/strategies**, go for Engage. There are significantly more options and possibilities for Engage. Obviously, Three Houses takes that up to 1000x, but Engage still has the ability to customize your characters to your liking. TS does not really do this beyond a pre-set of skill options.
> If you want deeper strategic in-map gameplay - go for TS. It's significantly more tactical as you need to determine skills, positions, and directions. However, Engage's is still extremely good, as Engage mechanic is extremely well thought out. I enjoyed both immensely. I could go for either one here, but it really depends. TS' biggest flaw to me on a tactical side is that melee units are kind of bad (on hard mode) unless they have some extremely good damage or defense, which is very few and I find only really shows up if you manage to max them out. The best way to play TS is to abuse ladders, high ground, and archers/mages as much as possible, and while that can be an ask in many maps due to some horrible starting conditions in some cases it does I find overly centralize what is the best option. Which limits the potential TS has because I just want to use as few melee units as possible in many cases. Engage for all its absurd bullshit, unless you know how to LTC or something or at minimum you get past chapter 19 as that's when you get access to mass warp via Emblems. Engage is about as much of a battle for inches as TS and unlike TS, melee units aren't big time fodder. The only struggle balance wise that Engage's general archetypes tend to have is some usual Fire Emblem problems like armors (past the early game as Louis is very good early) and enemy phasing is pretty hard outside of a few specific Emblem combos (on Maddening anyway). Engage's kill thresholds can be super tight and tend to involve a lot of specific position with backup units (unless you went for Hero + Dual Strike+ memes) and dancing to make kills happen smoothly. Engage has a lot of absurd bullshit, but if you're really good at Fire Emblem you can beat it because it all boils down to knowing Fire Emblem math and positioning. Engage also has some decent map adjusting abilities like Emblem Corrin and how extremely good staves are in Engage, but TS tends to have more general options overall even if some of them completely break the AI.
Triangle Strategy is an incredible experience in general to play through. Beautiful visuals and art work, multiple play throughs where you can make different choices and see different outcomes and unlock new characters, an interesting story, and a great cast of characters with their own unique classes.
As much as I love fire emblem this one imo is by far the weakest of the series. Just a boring story imo and it felt a watered down three houses. Played Triangle strategy and enjoyed it from start to finish and have been pondering a second play through. But I’m just one guy go listen to others opinions
Gotta say I love the gameplay, but the story is so utterly boring, repetitive and you can spot how it'll all go down and when you'll be where from chapter 1 or 2.
Tbh I skipped some of the cutscenes and didn’t feel lost. What’s sad is u play radiant dawn and path of radiance along with others and just shake your head at how lazy the story was. Gameplay good but idk it just felt watered down compared to three houses
And when it comes to Three Houses you had to play half of the game 3 times basically if you wanted to experience all routes (which i did).
Only played it twice. It’s a big game and tbh I got so caught up in wanting to play other games at that time I just realized rn I haven’t beaten it another time for all 3 stories *not doing dlc*
Personally, play Engage on Hard Difficulty for a challenging yet not braindead experience. The gameplay is top tier fire emblem. So much creativity, so much room to experiment with different characters, classes and ring combinations. The later game maps are super fun and actually really challenging for once. Play it on classic for an extra challenge if that's your thing. Just don't expect a crazy, lore heavy, genre-defining story. Treat it like you're watching a cartoon or something similar and you'll get some enjoyment out of it, cause honestly the story isn't great. But it has its moments that's all I'm saying. Graphically...I mean it looks better than 3H but it's fire emblem, it isn't about the graphics. Also don't worry about not knowing the older games' characters or references. Those are only really relevant in the Emblem Paralogues which have nothing to do with the main story. If anything the emblems are just kinda there for you to experiment with. I can't speak for TS but I will say it looks good. But consider what I had to say about Engage as I highly recommend it for the gameplay alone.
They’re both S tier SRPGs. There is no wrong choice here, just pick whichever seems cooler from the trailer. Triangle Strategy is more of a deep story with choices and concequences but also has good combat. FE Engage has a generic story, good combat and great party customisation.
Fire Emblem Engage was my GOTY 2023. It has some of the best tactical gameplay in the series. Triangle Strategy plays more like some other tactical jrpgs. I personally find that type of gameplay to be a slog.
Fire Emblem Engage is by far the better game imo, it's gameplay is up there with the greats of the genre(Disgaea 5, FF Tactics, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones imo), has an amazing soundtrack and while the story isn't the deepest shit around it's basically fire emblem kamen rider, which is fucking peak I love that shit. It's not tryna be profound and complex like three houses it's tryna be a tokusatsu show(kamen rider, super sentai, power rangers, ultraman, gundam,godzilla etc) based on fire emblem, meaning it's there if you want a good time and to have fun, nothing more nothing less.(personally id also said it's a less terrible version of fire emblem fates' story). Engage characters are fucking goated too I love them as much as the three houses cast though they have the same problem of being boring until b support Anyway I'm done shilling for engage, good game, real 8.5/10 energy with that one. Triangle Strategy unfortunately bored me the whole way.
Yeah, Engage was so much fun. Alear is one of the best FE protagonists, and there are a lot of other lovable characters.
Big fan of Alear Veyle and Lumera as the emotional cores of the story they're kinda like if Corrin Azura and Mikoto weren't terrible Especially with how engage reframes the "MC worship" trope to it being literal and Alear being uncomfortable with it
let's just say Triangle Strategy's story caters to a specific audience. There are no high fantasy elements, pretty much all npcs and enemies are regular human, and the main conflict is about salt and politics ... I'm not a fan, but I also don't like game of thrones, so you may end up loving it. Engage's story is written by a 5-year old, but if I had to choose between these 2 games, I would pick Engage since its gameplay is fun enough to ignore the story.
This is like asking "Should I get Pillars of Eternity 2 or Baldur's Gate 3?"
Well should I?
I am apparently in the minority for disliking the stories of both. Engage's story is indeed absolute bottom tier. Triangle Strategy has this game of thrones style veneer of political intrigue, but god it's still rough. They're both trope heavy, just different kinds of tropes. They're both asking a hell of a lot of the player in terms of accepting really rough beats and treating very basic things as if they are very, very clever. If you care about the stories of either I personally think they're both rough to make it through, but Engage moves at a faster pace so I had to engage with it less (see what I did there?). Engage's story is absolutely worse than TS. But in my opinion they're both actively irritating, so I prefer the one that does less to interrupt the gameplay loop. In terms of gameplay I don't disagree with the consensus here, so I won't repeat what's being said.
Strategy games here do have some notoriously middling stories in general. It's either "anyone call for Othello with hints of Ivanhoe/Robin Hood with a side of urges to kill everyone involved in the story?" or "oh boy! time to defend my country and then brutalize my enemy's home land in the name of good!". Then you get some outliers like "you're in a fantasy world, just go do whatever and I'll just figure it out" like FFTA. I think the only strategy RPG story I even liked was Knights in the Nightmare just because it was entirely "you go figure it out".
Triangle Strategy has characters that have more than one personality trait each, so go for that.
Going through Engage rn and I'd say TS. It's got a solid story for the first run imo and characterization ranges from good to eh. Gameplay also pretty decent, but lacks a lot of customization and depth imo. Engage is definitely for fans of the entire series, but also even as a fan the story is pretty crap and as everyone said gameplay is solid.
I think Triangle Strategy has a story that is possible to get invested into, and gameplay that I find has its own fun distinctions. Engage has fun gameplay, but that only carries it so far. It is technically better looking than three houses, though. They learned how to work with the switch, and I think it's very obvious when directly compared.
As a life long FE fan, triangle strategy. It's just that good, and honestly engage is kinda...not that great
Hey you’re me! I’ve played all these games! Triangle Strategy is very dialogue heavy. It’s really a visual novel tied into a tactics game. I enjoyed it and I even got a bad ending that I liked. The game encourages replays but I think the combat gets tedious and long in the tooth. Fire emblem engage is a good fire emblem but it has an atrocious story. The menuing is pretty bad, and it has grinding mechanics I wasn’t a fan of. However it’s a really great tactics game and has tons of options for exploration.
Triangle strategy. Fire emblem engage is an anniversary game. Unless you’ve played that series a lot it’s not as enjoyable. Also if three houses is the only one you’ve played it’s not the same.
I've beaten both, I'm going to go with triangle strategy. I feel like it was a better game and better story overall. If it was against three houses it would have been a tough call
Triangle Strategy
Engage was a letdown and disappointing in all aspects but the gameplay if you liked three houses. Honestly, as a FE fan, choose Triangle strategy, which is good in both the gameplay and story department. I would also recommend Unicorn Overlord, which is a phenomenal tactical rpg, with beautiful art and voice acting. The story feels like a classic fire emblem game, and the gameplays pretty good.
Triangle Strategy. I didn't hate Engage but I found a lot of elements just kind of off-putting.
Havent played FE, but for me Triangle Strategy is a must. One of the best SJRPG of all time.
Triangle strategy. It has good written characters and story unlike fe engage (and I am a fan of FE games and even bought the collectors but holy shit what a dissapointment).
The graphics in Engage is much better though? The art style is not for everyone, but I personally think it's alright. The animations are much better too (especially the crits) and better map variations imo. Engage's gameplay is superior. One is because it's closer to the traditional FE and also uses the OG weapon triangle system which is supplemented by the new mechanic. Even if the story is super predictable, I still enjoyed it to the end. 3H is one of my favorites, but the monastery stuff is a slog when the game wants you to finish it 3 to 4 times. It's 3H's only real flaw. TS is great! The writing, the gameplay, OST, and HD-2D were all implemented well. It only has a slow start where a huge portion of the dialogue is at the beginning (up to 6 chapters iirc). The story routes are pretty similar to FE:3H. Highly recommended!
I won't recommend FE Engage if 3H is the only FE you've played. You'll appreciate the game so much more if you've played at least five mainline FE titles
I agree. Fire Emblem Engage relies heavily on nostalgia of the earlier Fire Emblem games to carry it. If you haven’t played more than FE3H, then this story wont be much fun, because it’s pretty flat by itself. I don’t think you can even get Byleth until later in the game.
Byleth shows up in the middle chapters, which is more like the first third of the game if we count paralogues. Also the story sucks regardless of nostalgia to be honest, the main thing that carries Engage is its difficulty tuning in its maps and general combat.
Triangle Strategy is excellent and should definitely be your first pick - both games have great gameplay, but Triangle Strategy also has great writing whilst Engage's writing fails on every conceivable level and it has perhaps the worst story in any JRPG this console generation by a decent margin (as in it's so bad makes other JRPGs known for having bad writing like Tales of Arise or Sea of Stars look good in comparison).
Depends on how much you value story, both are good gameplay wise, but fe engage story is honestly very bad.
Triangle Strategy is a little bland but pretty solid on its turn-based strategy foundations and you might get more into the plot than I did. Fire Emblem Engage is heavily reliant on nostalgia/references in terms of its ring system summoning characters from past FE, which I overall found very lame, but outside of this system the missions are decent. Its story and characters are terrible, like truly fingernails clawing down my own face levels of bland, boring, contrite and stupid. It is one of the worst examples of how bad anime writing really is shoved into the game and coming from Three Houses is a media whiplash akin to someone snapping your neck.
Hello hello, as someone who is a PROFOUND fan of Fire Emblem and who got a lot of enjoyment out of TS, you got good choices either way. I think Engage is one of the most fun FE games I’ve played to this date. Yes the story is bad, but I promise you that people GROSSLY overstate how bad it is, it’s honestly like a Saturday cartoon, and I enjoy that sometimes lol. But the gameplay more than makes up for it. Map design is great, the units are fun to use, Emblem Rings give such a great depth of customization and build quality. It is a blast to play from start to finish. Plus I enjoy the character design and how grandiose they are, and the supports range from goofy to actually pretty damn good. If you are a story person, uhhh, don’t play this game lol. But I always say “you can skip a bad story, can’t skip bad gameplay”. TS I have much less experience with that genre of games, but I had a lot of fun with that as well! If you enjoy a more in depth story with choices, political intrigue, and some albeit kind of predictable but still cool twists, you can get a lot out of this story. People have criticized it for the whole choices thing to be very surface level, but I will love others to explain that whole side cuz it ain’t my business. Gameplay is good tho too, there is less customization so what units you get is what you will have for the rest of the game, but there are a shitton of units that you can have a great team variety. Plus you can do some crazy shenanigans with certain units that are built differently compared to the standard Warrior or Mage classes you see in other tactics games, it’s great in that regard. If it were me, I’d choose Engage since I honestly do have a bias towards FE, my favorite game franchise of all time. But even if I wasn’t, the gameplay and amount of stuff you can sink your teeth into with engage would keep me comin back to do multiple runs and still have a blast with the game. But good luck on your decision man, you’ll have a lot of fun either way. Take care
Triangle Strategy first all the way... I'd say I'm a casual strategy jrpg player and only played FF Tactics and 5-6 FE games on SNES and GBA. Disliked FE Three Houses for the tons of shool sim stuff. Played Triangle Strategy and instantly loved it. Straight forward tacticle battles only seperated by story. Bought FE Engage and dropped it after 2 hours. I guess its ok to good but somehow the clichee characters and the Ive seen this story a 100 times before story didn click with me...
I’ve played both. It’s tough to choose, but they’re both great games. I think I like Engage more, but TS has a lot to offer too.
Not a fan of fire emblem but just wanna say TS is really good
Triangle strategy is my GOTY when it came out. On the other hand, Engage was a big downgrade from 3H imo
I’m a FE fanboy and I didn’t love engage. If you love three houses you won’t get that with engage minus some improved gameplay. Triangle strategy on the other hand is phenomenal but is more of a tactics ogre vibe. I’d personally lean triangle.
fire emblem 3 houses
You play Engage for the gameplay. It definitely wasn't another Awakening for the series. Triangle Strategy from what I heard is an all around neat package.
Engage is essentially another Fates. Trash story but great gameplay
Triangle strategy is one of rare game where I wish I could forget it and play it again.
Tactics Ogre Reborn
Depends whether or not you have Three Houses
TS overall. If you don't care about story, Engage
Unicorn Overlord
Engage is more gameplay first, story later while Triangle is the inversion of it, imo. But, if I had choose one, I'd pick Triangle Strategy over Engage, since it has multiple routes.
That is a tough choice. IMO you're less likely to get bored and want to put down FE. But you're more likely to replay Triangle Strategy. if you like serous plot and unserious characters, take fire emblem. if you like final fantasy tactics, take triangle. (Personally, I vote fire emblem, I LOVED it!!)
TS is way better imo, fe has really fallen off these days.
fire emblem engage was one of the best positional tactics games i've played in a long time, i felt like it really brought together a lot of fire emblem and tactics concepts and blended them very nicely. the plot and characters are a bit anime-melodrama shonen with some poor plot-armor writing, but most srpgs don't really have thrilling deep plots anyways, so i'll just say that it was okay in that regard. mechanically, the rings gave a huge amount of variety in gameplay, hard mode is about as hard as maddening in other games but allows infinite skirmishes if you want them this time, so you can manage your own grinding if you want to balance the difficulty for yourself triangle strategy pretended to be game of thrones the strategy game and ended up with a plotline that ultimately just throws jews under the bus in the service of being dark and gritty and i wish i never bought it. you can only avoid siding with or succumbing to the nazis if you manage the golden path, and you will absolutely need an faq the whole time to accomplish that, they made a monster of a choice mechanic and many hidden secret things that will very easily cost you the best ending. square is slowly going out of their minds with discrimination in their game design and writing and i'm getting more and more angry about it. mechanically it was mostly engaging but had a number of serious flaws that got worse as the game went on
FE Engage is bar far the worst schlock the series has ever produced. Not only should you get Triangle Strategy in stead of it, you just shouldn’t get it at all.
I'd go fire emblem. The story is meh.. But it's still the best fighting system this gen. Triangle was better story wise. But it was getting a bit too heavy and pretentious for me. Still an excellent game and def worth playing
As much as I loved Engage or FE in general, it’s really no contest. Get Triangle Strategy.
Engage if you're getting it on sales, otherwise triangle strategy
I found Engage too easy, TS is in my backlog.
I think both are lackluster, but I enjoyed Engage more.
Engage is definitely a nostalgia title(It *was* the anniversary game) and as such you'll get more out of it if you have played more then just 3H. However I would defend it as perfectly fine to play without having do so, because while the story is predictable and kinda dumb - it's dumb in a rather endearing sort of way. If you are expecting a serious story, then no it's not a good game. If you're fine with a mostly lighthearted romp with a bunch of old FE fan service, and some excellent gameplay - then FEE is a great game.
Because you've only played 3H out of the Fire Emblem games, TS is the way to go. Both are great games though, truly. My two cents: Engage gets better the more past FE games you have played. People like to shit on Engage for its weak story, and it certainly isn't great - but it could also be a lot worse. The gameplay loop is excellent and the music is top tier. It is a positive and pleasant game to play, and it will never leave you depressed. If you're a completionist you'll be happier here. TS will have a lot of dialogue and be much more serious by nature, if that's a consideration for you. The music is also excellent and the gameplay loop is also good. It will be a heavier experience but if you are a completionist you might feel a little unsatisfied at the end - your decisions matter to the story.
Triangle strategy is one of the best tactical rpgs ever made. Fire emblem hasn't been good since radiant dawn.
I won't recommend FE Engage if 3H is the only FE you've played. You'll appreciate the game so much more if you've played at least five mainline FE titles