Spoilers for Fire Emblem Engage aheadFire Emblem Engage is a substantial departure from the political intrigue of Intelligent Systems' prior release in the series, Three Houses. Not only does Engage employ a single storyline relying on "good versus evil" tropes, it also harkens back to older entries with mechanics like the weapon triangle using a unique new "Break" system. The game is explicitly about the franchise's history, centering a quest to collect 12 Emblem Rings based on previous protagonists who help the new cast in battle. However, Fire Emblem Engage loses something in the lack of opportunities for those Emblems to talk among themselves.
Fans of the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes should recognize every Emblem in the base experience (paid DLC adds a handful more). Yet for casual fans there will undoubtedly be a gulf of knowledge going from recognizable Lords like Marth and Roy to some like Sigurd from Genealogy of the Holy War; still a Japan-exclusive SNES release. The Bond discussions between Emblems and units they're paired with help fill the gap, but often these are shorter, surface-level discussions focused on Engage's main cast. For long-time fans, there is clear missed potential to discuss areas where older titles overlap.
Emblems in Fire Emblem Engage Hardly Acknowledge One Another
Beyond the conversations that act like Supports between a unit and their Emblem Ring, unlocking additional tiers of skills as the game progresses, one of the few places where Emblems speak is in casual lines of flavor text around the Somniel hub. Some explicit references to each Emblem's connections are acknowledged. For example, Celica talks about the proximity between Marth's Archanea and her homeland of Valentia, which is further fleshed out in the future world of Fire Emblem Awakening. Sigurd also talks about how nice it is to have a member of his family among the Emblems, referencing his nephew Leif.
Much of this is relegated to optional snippets of dialogue, however. Over the course of the story, Emblems hardly talk to one another outside a few scenes establishing the "Miracle" they can bestow when all 12 are gathered: the ability to bring someone back to life as a new Emblem, which they do for player-character Alear. Each Emblem's Paralogue mission references a map from their original game, including some overlap like Micaiah discussing a battle against Ike, but there is no system in place for these returning characters to chat with one another.
Robust Emblem Conversations Would Give Older References More Life
The narrative purpose of the Emblem Rings is to serve the evolution of Alear, each demonstrating a lesson about the strength of character required to overcome insurmountable odds during wartime. That they grant units new abilities and can make small references to past games is almost incidental, so it's easy to see why not much attention was given to Emblems interacting. However, there are a wealth of fun references to connections between older titles that are dropped.
One of the biggest missed opportunities is a conversation between Lucina and Ike, as an optional character in Fire Emblem Awakening was Ike's descendant Priam. In fact, Lucina is a fulcrum for much fan service that Fire Emblem Engage could have explored. She could have talked to Celica about the secret boss fight against Awakening's Fell Dragon Grima in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, or come to realize that Inigo, Owain, and Severa traveled to Nohr during a conversation with Corrin.
Deeper conversations between characters who are directly related through chronological games would also make sense. Lyn and Roy, Sigurd and Leif, as well as Ike and Micaiah all have a shared history (not to mention Lucina and her ancestor Marth). In the prior two cases, Roy and Leif are from different generations, so they could have more time to chat with their fellows at the prime of their lives. The addition of Emblem Rings for Chrom, Hector, Soren, and more in Fire Emblem Engage's DLC creates more opportunities, so it's a shame that a game so focused on Intelligent System's past doesn't tap into them.
Fire Emblem Engage is available now on Nintendo Switch.