Fire Engage Part 7: Chapter 21-26

Here is the final part of my playthrough of Fire Emblem Engage. Beware of spoilers, including for the ending!

More Paralogues

Before we begin, I'll discuss the Paralogues, so those who have stumbled here won't inadvertently read spoilers.

Byleth's Paralogue was the first one I did, and takes place inside the Holy Tomb. Like Chapter 11 of Three Houses, you must advance to the south to defeat the boss- Byleth, in this case- while protecting the Crystals, which are stand-ins for Crest Stones. The good news is that they're destroyable objects and it takes the enemy a few attacks to bring them down. The bad news is that once they're down, they're gone forever; in Three Houses, you could recover the Crest Stones by defeating the enemies carrying them before they could flee.

Byleth is the boss of the chapter, and primarily uses his Goddess Dance to refresh units. Somewhat annoyingly, the staff users near him use Warp to send enemies to where you're most vulnerable, while Byleth often runs away to Goddess Dance on his allies. I was ultimately able to win, and while one of the crystals got destroyed, I still got some item rewards. In my experience, item rewards for bonus objectives are nice, but nothing you'll miss too much if you aren't able to get then.

Corrin's Paralogue was next, and takes place at the Branch of Fate, the battle in which Corrin chooses a side. Since Revelation, in which Corrin refuses to take a side, is canon, you end up facing stand-ins for the Hoshidan and Nohrian royals, as well as Corrin. The actual map simply required you to defeat the units that came your way before the time expired, but here, you have to make your way to the bottom of the  map- a plain divided by a Y-shaped river- to defeat Corrin.

Corrin has the ability to use Divine Pulse, which, in Fates, gave varying abilities based on each map. This time, it turns the river shoals to fire, although luckily, I was out of the river by the time she used it.

The third one I did was Micaiah, who had a defense map as a re-enactment of her battle with Ike. There were a fair amount of enemies, but they were gathered near the south end of the map, so I was able to stay on the offensive.

After the next couple missions, I did a few more(I'm not entirely sure when, so I decided to put them up here).

Roy's Paralogue is based on the time he fought a man named Murdock, whose name is unfamiliar to me. There isn't too much special about the map, although there are a lot of wyvern reinforcements. Luckily for me, one of Fire Emblem's most infamous mechanics- enemy reinforcements appearing at the end of the Player Phase and attacking unsuspecting units- doesn't apply in Engage, at least outside of Maddening..

Eirika's Paralogue takes her to a temple, and she implies that she fought her old friend Lyon there. Strangely enough, Eirika's brother Ephraim doesn't appear at all, and while the same goes for Celica's love interest Alm, as well as Lyn's co-protagonists Eliwood and Hector, he was supposed to share her Emblem with her.

Sigurd's Paralogue is divided in two by a river running east to west, with the drawbridge controlled by a castle on the southern bank. The map doesn't seem much larger than average, in contrast to how Genealogy's maps were infamously large- a video ranking the largest maps in the franchise excluded Genealogy because its maps are in a league of their own.

Chapter 21

Mauvier offers to take Alear and company to Lythos, and Marni, despite her initial shock, reluctantly agrees to a truce.

On the way over, Mauvier gives some exposition. He reveals that Sombron's goal is to raise Gradlon, the domain of the Fell Dragon, from the sea- I'd noticed that it was described as being in the space between Lythos and the other four nations, but didn't know where exactly it was. Sombron then plans to conquer other universes by destroying the crystal.

Mauvier also gives exposition on Veyle's backstory, saying that she cannot use Emblems, hence why Sombron declared her a "defect." She led a lonely existence, knowing that people wanted her dead.

Marni then reveals her backstory. Her mother abandoned her due to having too many children and due to her being a girl, even though Marni claims to have been superior to her brothers. She then joined up with the Four Hounds and considered them her family. It's supposed to be a tragic backstory, but considering that Marni never showed any redeeming personality traits until now, it comes off as too little, too late.

Alear arrives in Lythos and sees that the land has started to rot, likely because of Sombron's schemes. Zephia greets Alear and her two comrades, and Veyle comes out, wearing a helmet that suppresses her evil personality. Mauvier orders Marni to return to the Hounds, but Marni tries to break the helmet, only for her to only make a small crack. Zephia then kills her, and Marni dies hoping that Veyle will return to normal. The game tries to make you feel sorry for Marni, but her "redemption" was too rushed to be believable. Would she have achieved it if she'd lived longer? To quote Soon Kim from The Order of the Stick:

"Perhaps, if you had more time... But then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all. It is not for everyone."

Mauvier, enraged, joins Alear to fight Zephia.

The level pits you against Veyle, Zephia and Griss. The latter two no longer have their Emblem rings and only have two health bars, but are not to be taken lightly.

At the end of the level, Veyle comes to her senses, due in part to the crack Marni inflicted on the helmet. She's about to give Alear Marth's ring, but then Sombron arrives and tries to kill Veyle now that she's no longer useful to him. Alear then blocks Sombron's breath, then dies just before she can tell Veyle they're sisters. Sombron then magically takes all 12 rings and uses them to raise Gradlon.

Chapter 22

A flashback shows what happened after the prologue. Alear struck down Sombron, but Sombron was still able to shoot Alear in the back after Alear reunited with Lumera. After a tearful conversation between adoptive mother and adoptive daughter, Alear passes out.

Alear finds herself in the afterlife. A familiar voice calls her name (although since the voice just says "Alear" or whatever name the player put in, there's no voice clip), and Alear thinks it's Lumera, but it's actually Veyle. Veyle believes she's "dead" now that her evil self has taken over, and while she's resigned to her fate, a comment about her wanting to be a good dragon reminds Alear of how she wanted to save the world. Alear convinces Veyle to seize control of herself by breaking her helmet and gets the idea to have Veyle revive Alear as a Corrupted.

The plan works, but there's a downside- Corrupted Alear can only summon a Corrupted Marth, and can't Engage with him, although she can use his passive abilities.

The mission this time involves recovering the other 11 Emblem rings. To do so, Alear has to stand near them- there are three clusters of three Emblems and one pair of them- to call out the invocatios, and other party members must talk to them. Obviously, this involves killing the Corrupted nearby, but the mission doesn't end until you get all the rings back.

Once they're back,  Alear begins to fade from the world due to Veyle no longer being able to keep her there, but then the Emblems work together to perform a miracle- making Alear the 13th Emblem, the Fire Emblem.

Unfortunately, Gradlon is rising, forming a ring between Lythos and the rest of Elyos, a bit like a bullseye. The heroes must destroy three crystals to break the barrier to the portal Sombron is using so they can stop the Fell Dragon's planned invasion of other worlds.

Chapter 23

The first crystal is in a volcanic area and is guarded by Zephia and Griss of the Four Hounds.

During this map, Zephia and Griss call down meteors on you, with each targeting a 3x3 area. Luckily, they're telegraphed one turn in advance, but one time, Chloe got frozen on one by an enemy staff user, and took 21 damage upon impact.

You have to face Zephia and Griss at the end, and while they have special weapons, they're not too different from usual. For the record, here's the number of times you face each one- five for each Hound

• Griss: 11, 17, 20, 21, 23
• Marni: 11, 14, 16, 17, 19
• Mauvier: 11, 14, 16, 17, 19
• Zephia: 11, 14, 17, 21, 23

It's a bit repetitive to have to face the same enemies over and over again. In Three Houses, you face Hubert seven times on the Azure Moon route(Chapters 1, 7, 12, 17 and 21, as well as two Paralogues- Dimitri and Bernadetta/Petra), and Edelgard six times on the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes (1, 7, 11, 12, 17 and the battle in Enbarr's palace) but those two are outliers- you rarely face any enemy more than three times.

After being defeated, Zephia hands you a magical item that you'll need to get to the next shard, one that she created at the cost of her remaining lifespan. It's more than a little contrived that a problem is introduced immediately before being solved.

Your party leaves Zephia, at which point Griss reveals he was just pretending to be dead, but not pretending to be fatally wounded. Before she and Griss die of their wounds, Zephia reminisces about how she always wanted a family... conveniently omitting how she murdered Marni for her betrayal and tried to do the same to Mauvier. Surprisingly enough, Griss seems to sympathize with her, despite apparently having cared for nothing except for his own masochistic pleasure until now, since he doesn't want to live without her. At the very least, the writers should have let the non-Mauvier Four Hounds stay one-dimensional psychopaths until the end, rather than clumsily trying to humanize them at the last minute.

Chapter 24

The next map takes you to an icy place. Alear uses the crystal, but it doesn't have the effect she expected- it sends her and the others back in time to 1,000 years ago, when the Fell Dragon Sombron was awake and Alear was serving him. The past version of Alear, clad in black and with entirely red hair, is the boss of the chapter.

The area is rather simple in design- three mountain passes separated by mountains that can be flown over, with passages between the passes, and rocks strewn all around. Every other turn, an avalanche goes through one of the passes(you're warned ahead of time), knocking back all units. This wouldn't be so bad, but there's a time limit- if you don't defeat Past Alear within 20 turns, you'll lose. To make matters worse, reinforcements often come in.

While this map is rather gimmicky and annoying, Past Alear isn't too hard, even with Corrupted Marth at her side.

After being defeated, Alear and company destroy the shard and return to the present, but not before forcing Alear to question her loyalty to a "father" who cares nothing for her and has happily killed his children for being "defects." Meanwhile, Past Alear meets up with Lumera.

Chapter 25

The final destination is Gradlon Temple. At this point, all of Sombron's minions are dead or have betrayed him, so he has to settle for resurrecting the dead. Taking a page out of Revelation, he resurrects Lumera, who approaches the heroes and invites them inside.

Feeling responsible for what happened to Lumera, Veyle takes matters into her own hands, a course of action that rarely ends well. She faces Lumera, promising to take her out so that Alear won't have to... but fails utterly, and Lumera, who's under Sombron's thrall, taunts her and guilt-trips over Veyle having previously killed her. Luckily, Alear and the others catch up.

The map has a relatively elaborate layout. Your army is divided into two near the south of the map, and two paths twist around and meet up in a central intersection, with a long range staff-wielding Corrupted to the south and Lumera to the north. Every so often, Lumera sends wavs of energy throughout the room, doing AOE damage to anyone who steps in them. The design is nice and elaborate.

It takes a while to fight your way to Lumera, but things don't get any easier once you're there. Lumera has two Qi Adepts Chain-Guarding her, with each also guarding a Corrupted who can use the long range magic Meteor (which isn't as long-range or deadly as in Three Houses, but also has unlimited uses). Taking her on is impractical until you defeat her retinue, and even then, she has a legendary sword.

After Lumera's defeat, she has another emotional conversation with Alear, expressing gladness that Alear had become an Emblem. The death scenes are so long and drawn-out that I've come to appreciate Edelgard's death scene in the ending cinematic of Azure Moon, in which the only dialogue is Dimitri calling her by her nickname, all the more.

The heroes tend to their wounded and prepare to take the fight to Sombron. However, Marth privately implies that this will be the last time he and his fellow Emblems can lend Alear their power.

Even More Paralogues

I did a few more Paralogues

Leif's Paralogue takes place on the River Thracia, during the time when he fought Reinhardt and Saias' army. It's one of the more annoying Paralogues, with multiple ballistae and staff wielders to harass you at a range.

Alear's Paralogue takes place in what looks like Queen Lumera's gardens. Alear finds a mysterious ring that seems to be an Emblem, but unfortunately, the Corrupted show up to steal it. Your initial goal is to defeat the Corrupted before it can escape, but things aren't that simple. Once the Corrupted falls, reinforcements arrive and you have to defeat them all. On my first attempt, I went straight for the ring and found myself in an untenable situation, surrounded by the newcomers and the enemies I had yet to defeat. I came back later and thought things through, clearing out all the Corrupted besides the ring thief with more than enough to spare. Once the last foe fell, I turned my attention to the thief, then dealt with the reinforcements.

At the end of the mission, it is revealed that the ring you secured is not an Emblem Ring but a Pact Ring, which a Divne Dragon bestows upon their most trusted ally. It's the equivalent of Jeralt's ring from Three Houses(which he shows you after a brief quest in Chapter 5 and you find in his office after he dies), but in that case, it was established better and earlier, and had more personal significance to the story.

In any case, you can give the ring to any allied unit with whom you've earned an A support(I chose Ivy), and once you do, a proposal scene follows. It's a touching moment, but I personally liked the Three Houses equivalent more, especially since the house leaders reflect on the final battle and discuss their plans for the future.

Once I felt I'd done enough, I headed to the final battle.

Chapter 26

Unlike the other missions, as well as the final chapter of Awakening (which also had the world map), you don't get to the mission on the world map. You instead go to the balcony of the Somniel, above the cafe, and take the portal to the rift in the sky.

Marth warns Alear that once Sombron is defeated and the portal is closed, all the Emblems besides Alear will disappear. Alear is saddened but accepts this as the price to pay for saving the world.

Sombron greets the heroes, telling them that he's fine with letting them go as long as they don't interfere, but Alear plans on stopping him to prevent him from attacking their world again. Sombron reveals that he is seeking the Zero Emblem, which is from his homeworld. Sombron was exiled from that homeworld when his enemies defeated him, but took the Zero Emblem with him, even though the Emblems say it shouldn't have survived the trip. It stayed with him until some villagers befriended him, then vanished.

This backstory is as contrived and last-minute as those of the Four Hounds, but at least Veyle points out the problem with it- Sombron had many who cared for him, but he was so obsessed with the Emblem of Beginnings that he didn't think twice about them. Meanwhile, Alear posits that the Zero Emblem must have wanted Sombron to forge connections of his own. Unfortunately, Sobmron is in no mood to listen, and a battle breaks out.

After you select all your units, Sombron closes the portal, preventing the heroes from returning and causing the Emblems to fade away. Luckily, Alear calls upon the power of friendship, and with a line from each deployed unit, she summons the Emblems once again.

The first phase of Sombron's battle is rather easy, since Sombron only comes with a few followers of each weapon type, sorted by weapon. As such,I wondered if the BGM, a remix of the theme song, only played with that phase due to being an upbeat tune for a one-sided battle against the main villain, to be switched out when the real fight begins.

Unsurprisingly, Sombron is only just getting started, and he transforms into his massive Fell Dragon form, which covers the middle of the arena. He has several different attacks- a single-target attack with long range, an AOE that hits everyone in his range, a breath weapon that strikes in one direction, and the ability to forcibly disengage all his foes.

Of course, you'll have to take down his shield first, and that requires defeating the Dark Emblems. There are 12 total, each a main antagonist in an Emblem's home game, and four come out at once, so you'll have to defeat each of the four to bring down the shield. They're rather powerful, but if you attack with the Emblem of the hero that defeated them, you'll gain an advantage.

Since the antagonists of Fire Emblem games range from fell dragons to demon lords to evil kings, you'd imagine that these Dark Emblems would be equally diverse, right? Wrong. All of them are generic Corrupted, and their classes don't necessarily match the villains they were based off of. To make matters worse, they have two lines of dialogue- one reacting to their opposing hero, an another upon being defeated- neither of which are voice-acted. This is remarkably disappointing and a waste of a good story element, to say the least.

In any case, once you take down Sombron's shield, you only have a short window of opportunity to damage him before he gets it up again. This mechanic makes his boss fight a bit more elaborate and entertaining, but like in many cases of bosses that are only vulnerable for short windows of time, your damage output is disproportionately more important than in other encounters.

Sombron has a lot of health- four health bars with 100 HP each- but eventually, he goes down. He remains obsessed with the Zero Emblem to the end and refuses to consider Veyle or Alear his children, but as he's dying, he takes Alear's suggestion to call out to the Emblem one last time. He claims to see the Zero Emblem (although it's unclear who or what it is), but neither Veyle nor Alear see anything as Sombron dies.

The heroes return home and Alear says goodbye to Marth and the other emblems.

The "Battle Data" shows, displaying a list of each story map and paralogue you've played, and for each, how many turns you took, which unit was the MVP(I'm not sure what criteria are used, though) and, new to this game, how long you took, although I personally find the timers inaccurate.

After that, there's a listing of each unit, how many battles they fought in and how many units they defeated, and a short epilogue- either when they were defeated in battle or what they did after the war. In a departure from previous games, only Alear can pair with someone- in my case, Ivy- and everyone else stays single. Three Houses not only had many paired endings for characters- romantic, platonic or familial- but each had the potential for characters to live their lives differently, and could depend based on the route. The lack of variety in the endings in this game is rather disappointing, especially since it could continue what was established in their support chains- for example, Citrinne and Yunaka could have a paired ending in which they work together to help orphans. Three Houses had a bit of an opaque mechanic for assigning pairings- apparently, units get paired to the unit with the most support points out of all their A supports- but you could choose which pairings you wanted by only getting to A supports with the desired pairings.

Following that, the credits play. I'm not as fond of the credit song as I am of "The Edge of Dawn" from Three Houses,  "The Heritors of Arcadia" from Shadows of Valentia,"Lost in Thoughts All Alone" from Fates, but the song is decent. The ending also has still images of the cast after the war, from Ivy taking the throne of Elusia to Jean and Chloe at a tea party with Celine.

After the credits, Alear prepares for her coronation, but still misses the Emblems. Veyle and the four main royals come to get her, and she leaves with them. After they leave, the rings light up and Marth's voice claims that they could come back if Alear so desires. This would imply a sequel, which has happened before- Mystery of the Emblem is a sequel to the original, Thracia 776 is an interquel to Genealogy, Blazing Blade is a prequel to Binding Blade, Radiant Dawn is a sequel to Path of Radiance, and Awakening is in the distant future of the Archanea saga while having some ties to Fates- but I feel as though the Emblems are best as a one-time thing.

That concludes my playthrough. In my next installment, I'll finally write up a review of Engage.