This week, we have something slightly different in terms of Fire Emblem Engage info. Rather than a new character profile, the official Fire Emblem Twitter has shared some details regarding the weapon triangle.

Exhibit 1:

The previous mainline entry, Three Houses, didn’t feature a weapon triangle, although there were “Breaker” abilities that were similar. Like other games, Sword beats Axe, Axe beats Lance and Lance beats Sword. In addition, Body Arts (basically Brawling) beats Bows, Tomes and Daggers.

In hindsight, this isn’t a massive surprise because Body Arts had a golden/brown icon on the map (although I didn’t really notice) and during Framme’s showcase, Body Arts had a weapon triangle advantage against Bow, which had a silver/colorless icon on the map. Likewise, Tomes and Daggers (seen in Céline’s showcase) had the same colour icon.

What’s a bit surprising is that Bows, Tomes and Daggers don’t have a weapon triangle advantage against anything. This might be because they’re all ranged weapons (Daggers has yet to be confirmed, but if they function like in Fates and Heroes, they should be). Also, Bows are effective against fliers and Tomes can target the Resistance stat. Maybe Daggers can lower stats?

Exhibit 2:

When a character uses a weapon with a weapon triangle advantage and the attack lands, this triggers “Break” on the enemy. An enemy inflicted with Break cannot counterattack until after the next combat.

We’ve seen Break occur numerous times during gameplay, but they cleverly ended the footage right before we learned what Break actually did. However, during every instance of Break, the character had a weapon triangle advantage. Also, during the animation, the enemy’s weapon appeared to fly out of their hand.

The part about the enemy being unable to counterattack until the end of the next combat is intriguing. I suspected the enemy couldn’t counterattack during the current combat (where the Break happened). However if it extends to the next combat, it could make Break really strong, enabling you to use a second character to wallop the defenceless foe.

Update 2: Gameplay footage confirms that Break persists until the end of the next combat.

Actually, if enemies can also trigger Break, that would balance things out.

It’s also worth pointing out that Nintendo of America’s screenshot shows the battle UI, which has something interesting. The enemy is listed as “Fabrication”, suggesting it’s some kind of artificial foe. Is this related to the story or perhaps some kind of enemies used for training purposes?

Also, some mild spoilers, but this particular screenshot reinforces one of the leaked screenshots from June.

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