Here’s what you should know.

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While the social sim aspects are still intact, the school-based mechanics unique to Three Houses have been removed.

Instead, Fire Emblem Engage follows a more traditional structure similar to Fire Emblem Awakening.

Everyone who plays Engage will likely recruit the same people and follow the same route through the story.

Prior to Three Houses, Fire Emblem’s combat used to revolve around a rock-paper-scissors style triangle.

Sword beats axe, axe beats lance, and lance beats sword.

Meanwhile hand-to-hand arts beat bows, daggers, and tomes.

If you fight a unit you have a weapon advantage over, it will cause a break.

Breaking an enemy means they can’t counterattack, which will save you vital health.

The most effective way to deal with enemy units is by taking full advantage of the weapon triangle.

Weapon Durability

Weapon durability has been almost entirely removed from Fire Emblem Engage.

Weapons cannot break and nearly every weapon can be upgraded with the proper materials and gold.

It’s cool to see these battlefields up close after each battle.

The Somniel

Between battles you might return to the Somniel, which acts as your home base.

you might exercise to give your character a temporary buff in the next battle.

Other animals you’ve adopted will gather resources for you in between battles at the animal pen.

you’re able to train three times after each battle to get a little extra XP.

you’re free to also donate to different countries to increase your reward pools after skirmishes.

And finally, you’re free to purchase alternate outfits and accessories for your units.

The cosmetics only affect a unit’s appearance at the Somniel though, and not on the battlefield.

Emblem Rings

At the center of Fire Emblem Engage is the Emblem Ring mechanic.

Throughout your journey you will collect Emblem Rings that house the spirit of past Fire Emblem protagonists.

Want to know how many of those games never came to the US?

The answer is too damn many.

Bond Rings

Along with Emblem Rings, you could also forge Bond Rings using Bond Fragments.

Bond Rings also feature characters from past Fire Emblem games, but these rings only give characters stat buffs.

100 Bond Fragments will get you one Bond Ring and 1000 will get you 10.

Achievements

Fire Emblem Engage adds hundreds of in-game achievements that can be converted into bond fragments.

These achievements range from deploying specific units multiple times to landing a certain amount of critical hits.

No one unit is overpowered, and every character serves a specific role.

I’m really excited to see how this expands as I progress.

A full review for Fire Emblem Engage is coming as we approach its release date on January 20.

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