Fire Emblem Engage Fell Xenologue Review Part 1

 It's been some time since I last posted. For the moment, I've shelved my plans to do a full review of Fire Emblem Engage, but may do shorter blog posts about it. I'll start with a review of the DLC known as the Fell Xenologue, a special was released in the fourth and final wave of DLC.

The basics of the Fell Xenologue is that it takes place in an alternate Elyos, which has seven Emblem bracelets (released earlier in the DLC) rather than twelve Emblem Rings. The bracelets are as follows.

  1. Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude: The protagonists of Three Houses, they share the Emblem of Rivals.
  2. Tiki, a manakete who debuts in the first game and returns in Awakening, is the Emblem of Dragons.
  3. Hector, the second of three protagonists of Blazing Blade, is the Emblem of  Strength.
  4. Soren, Ike's best friend and advisor from Tellius(Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn), is the Emblem of Acumen.
  5. Camilla, Corrin's adoptive sister from Nohr in Fates, is the Emblem of Revelation.
  6. Chrom and (male)Robin, the main Lord and player avatar of Awakening, is the Emblem of Bonds
  7. Veronica, a villain turned hero from Heroes, is the Emblem of Heroes
Each of them(except the Three Houses trio) has their own Divine Paralogue, which must be completed to unlock them in the main campaign. I will discuss them in time.

As a disclaimer, I did not purchase or play the DLC, since I thought $30 was a bit much.

For now, let's get to the Xenologue. Once again, beware of spoilers.

Fell Xenologue 1

The Xenologue begins with a cryptic monologue from a mysterious woman- Nel, one of the new characters in the DLC. Shortly thereafter, Alear has a vision of someone who resembles her, but is the opposite gender(and since my Alear was female, the other one will be referred to as male), and has all blue hair as opposed to red and blue. The other Alear is cryptic, saying he needs Alear's help to save an alternate Elyos where heroes dwell in bracelets rather than rings, since an evil person threatens it. He also implies that he is dead.

Alear finds herself inside Lythos Castle. Nel and Nil a twin sister and brother, introduce themselves, grateful Alear has answered their prayers. Nel is rather shocked to hear Alear's name, and notes that "Fate has made a cruel and mysterious choice." Nel coldly tells Alear that she would rather not have seen Alear again, shocking Nil.

Yet another infodump begins, an all-too-familiar crutch of exposition. After explaining the purpose of the Emblem Bracelets, and how they have Tiki's Bracelet, Nel and Nil reveal that 1,000 years ago, a war happened between the Divine and Fell dragons, and Lumera imprisoned Sombron at the cost of her own life. The alternate Alear succeeded his mother as Divine Dragon ruler and did his duty well until Sombron returned and the two slew each other. While Sombron is gone, an unknown individual is trying to carry on Sombron's will and is seeking out the four Emblem bracelets.

You may recall that in the main campaign, Lythos Castle had six Emblem Rings, Firene and Solm had two each, and Brodia and Elusia each had one, but they're distributed a little differently here. One bracelet is in Lythos Castle, two are in the enemy's hands and the remaining four are divided between the remaining nations, which are now in a cold war, having blamed each other for the Divine Dragon's death.

On the one hand, I'll concede that it's understandable that someone would need to get Alear up to speed about the alternate Elyos, like Lumera did about the 1,000 years since Alear fell asleep. On the other hand, this is a rather amateurish way of delivering exposition.

Alear assumes that Nel and Nil are Divine Dragons, but Nel refutes that assumption. Nil is about to explain more when some Corrupted and a hooded individual arrive, and Nel transforms, with Nil's dragonstone glowing. A shocked Alear remarks that Nel is a Fell Dragon, and as the scene cuts to a CG image of Nel in a form that resembles Sombron's, she revels that so is Nil, since Fell Dragons are born as twins. Nil reveals that he cannot transform, but can still fight alongside Nel's side. Nel states that she assumed Alear knew that they were Fell Dragons, and states that if Alear isn't fine with that, they can fight without her. Alear says she can help them, and fights the invader.

The scriptwriters botched the revelation of Nel and Nil's true nature by telling us, rather than showing us and letting the sight of Nil. Here's a better way.

Alear: So you're both Divine Dragons like me?
Nel: What makes you think that? We...
(Enemies appear)
Nel: Watch out! Assassins!
Nil: Nel!
(Nil's gem glows and Nel transforms)
Alear: Huh?! You're...
(A CG shows Nel in her Fel Dragon form. A second later, the dialogue appears)
Alear: A Fell Dragon?!
Nel: Indeed, as is Nil. Do you have any objections?
Alear: None.

This is a relatively basic outline of what the exchange should sound like, but I hope it demonstrates a better way to handle it.

From what I've heard, the map isn't too difficult, but there is one frustrating aspect- Nil is absolutely terrible as a unit, since he's too weak to be able to fight against the units, and his death results in a Game Over.

Alear, Nel and Nil defeat the enemies, and recover The Bracelet of the Ancestor. Alear tries to summon Tiki, but fails and gets her in her Corrupted state. Despite being Corrupted, Tiki is able to speak, which should be impossible for her. Tiki is in great pain and doesn't want to fight, so Nel returns her to sleep, which she does for all Emblem bracelets as a precaution. Nil suspects that someone awakened Emblem Tiki, presumably a Fell Dragon sibling of theirs. Unfortunately, he doesn't know all their siblings, let alone who's still alive, although Nel suspects that the power to control Emblems is rare. Nil notes that he is a powerless failure in Sombron's eyes, one who only survived by sticking with Nel.

Alear agrees to join Nel and Nil, although things are still tense between her and Nel. In fact, Alear is more hostile toward Nel than anyone who isn't an enemy. They take Alear to visit her alternate self's grave, and Alear promises her other self that she'll set things right for his sake.

A sepia-toned flashback plays, showing Nil tearfully lamenting that he can't transform, but Nel reassuring him and offering him her dragonstone.

Thoughts So Far

The DLC gets off to a decent start, although it has some of Engage's bad habits, such as infodumping.

Tiki is a reasonable choice for an Emblem, not only being a well-known character from Fire Emblem, but also giving players the ability to tranform into a dragon like manaketes do. Alear's inability to transform into a dragon despite being a dragon was noted as being rather disappointing, so this is a nice touch, even if it's a power that's not unique to Alear.

That's all for now. Next up will be the second chapter.

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