Today, in addition to a new trailer aimed at beginners, Nintendo Japan updated the official site for Fire Emblem Engage, to add the missing gameplay section.

Most of the info has been covered in the past or in the new trailer, but as usual, there are some new bits and bobs. Plus it’s always good to recap the information.

There are four sub-sections, covering game flow, battles, growth and the Somniel.

Game Flow

The game follows a cycle similar to previous games.

Between battles, you can freely move around. You can return to the Somniel, your base of operations, and you can explore the world map. During this time, you can train your allies in optional battles, etc. When you’re ready, simply head to the destination of the next story chapter.

We’re shown a small glimpse of the world map. I believe Alear is running in the direction of Solm.

The square/diamond location with the house and hedges seems to be the Firenese map where NPCs are being attacked, seen in Alfred’s spotlight. If so, it could be a paralogue, assuming circle locations are story battles.

I think the circle location next to the house and windmill is Chapter 17, where sh** hits the fan. The route leading north from it should lead to Chapter 4, where the group first arrives at Firene and Céline needs help.

After making sure you’re fully prepared, you can begin the story battle. March your units to fight the enemy army, while keeping tabs on their classes, stats, equipment and so forth.

The screenshot shows Alear defeating a Corrupted in the Prologue, I believe.

Units are divided into various classes, which affect what weapons they can wield, their movement options and their stats, etc. Every class is balanced, so they all have weaknesses and strengths and it’s your job to decide which class is best suited for the given situation.

Some classes include…

Lance Armor: A heavily fortified lance wielder. Has high Defence but weak to magic. (Illustrated by Louis.)

Mage: Attacks using magic tomes. Strong against foes with high Defence. (Illustrated by Clanne.)

Martial Monk: Can heal allies using staves, while defending themselves with Body Arts. (Illustrated by Framme.)

Lance Flier: A lance knight that can soar across the skies. Strong against magic, but weak to Bows. (Illustrated by Chloé.)

Archer: Can attack foes from range using their Bows. (Illustrated by Etie.)

When a character has gained enough experience points, you can use items to Class Change.

Satisfy the victory conditions of the battle, by routing or defeating the commander etc. and you’ll win the battle. Good job!

After the battle, you can explore the battleground. You can chat with allies and obtain bond fragments from them, which can be used to Create Bond Rings or challenge Emblems at the Arena.

The screenshot here seems to show Lumera and the Stewards of the Dragon at the Prologue(?) battleground. Presumably this is after Alear and Vander reunite with the twins, then Lumera rescues Alear from Corrupted that managed to survive.

Choose How Strong the Enemies are

Similar to previous games, you can customise your experience.

You can choose Classic Mode, where KO’d characters are permanently gone, or Casual Mode, where KO’d characters return after the end of the battle.

Independent from this, you can choose from three difficult levels: Normal, Hard or Maddening.

Later on, you can change the difficulty inside My Room, at the Somniel. If it’s like previous games, you can only go down a difficulty, not up.

As an additional safety net, you can use the Draconic Time Crystal via the menu during fights to rewind time to a previous state. Just like Mila’s Turnwheel or Divine Pulse. This is useful if an ally gets KO’d or something else goes badly wrong and you want a quick redo, without restarting the entire battle.

If you missed it, we covered this footage a while back.

Battles

Battles are a core part of the Fire Emblem experience. You must use your best judgement to move your allies around, each with their own unique characteristics. The future of Elyos and their individual lives are in your hands!

The footage of Lapis synced with Marth and Rosado Engaged with Marth is from Marth’s overview. There’s also a brief moment at the start where Alfred dodges a foe from today’s new trailer, which might be a mistake (either way, it looks jarring).

Turn-based Battles

Battles are turn-based and occur on a grid-based map. During the Player Phase, you can move all of your units on the map. After doing so, the Enemy Phase will begin.

The footage of Alfred and Louis is from today’s new trailer. The battle is from Chapter 7: Dark Emblems, when Hortensia is showing off Lucina against Alear.

Identifying enemy characteristics

You should evaluate how your units’ weapons and classes match up against the enemy. For example, you’ll want to keep your Fliers away from enemies with Bows. No matter how strong your allies are, they won’t show off their full potential if you force them into a disadvantage.

The examples shown are the ones from the “My First Fire Emblem” trailer.

Bad examples: Chloé takes heavy damage from a Bow user, Louis gets shot at from afar, then gets roasted by magic, axe-wielding Anna gets broken by a sword user and lance-wielding Timerra gets broken by a axe wielder.

Good examples: Axe-wielding Anna breaks a lance user and Lance-wielding Timerra breaks a sword user.

These occur at the Firenese village ruins from Chapter 6 and, I think, Celica’s throwback map.

Fighting with Emblems

The protagonist can borrow the power of Emblems who slumber in rings. They will prove to be invaluable allies during difficult fights. By fighting together, your stats will increase and you can unlock special techniques.

The slideshow shows Etie Engaged with Eirika, Rosado Engaging with Lucina, Alcryst Engaged with Leif, Citrinne Engaging with Micaiah, Kagetsu Engaged with Lyn, Lapis Engaged with Celica, Alear Engaged with Marth, Pandreo Engaged with Roy and Alear (as Divine Dragon) Engaging with Marth.

There’s a whole trailer, “Engaging with Emblems” that teaches you everything you need to know about Emblems.

Syncing with Emblems

By equipping an Emblem Ring, the character will become “synced” with the Emblem. They’ll fight in unison and the Emblem will grant special skills called Sync skills.

Marth’s Perceptive boosts Avoid when initiating combat. (Illustrated by Lapis.)

Sigurd’s Canter lets the user move 2 squares after performing an action. (Illustrated by Chloé.)

Lyn’s Desperation allows the user to perform a follow-up attack before the foe counters if their Speed is high enough. (Illustrated by Kagetsu.)

The footage shown is from Marth, Sigurd and Lyn’s overview videos.

Characters can learn an Emblem’s Sync skills via Skill Inheritance.

Engaging with Emblems

Engage lets the ring bearer and Emblem temporarily combine into one being. In this state, they can wield the Emblem’s weapons and unlock Engage skills and Engage attacks, greatly enhancing their abilities. Engaging lasts 3 turns, so you want to time it right.

Here are some Engage attacks…

Marth’s Lodestar Rush deals 7 hits at 30% damage each. (Illustrated by Rosado.)

Sigurd’s Override hits enemies in a line and moves the user to the end of the line. (Illustrated by Merrin.)

Lyn’s Astra Storm is a long-ranged attack that deals 5 hits at 30% damage each. (Illustrated by Timerra.)

Like before, the footage is recycled from each Emblem’s overview video.

The Engage weapons wielded while Engaged can be enhanced.

Giving Birth to Bonds

When allies fight alongside eachother or with Emblems, they can form bonds. These bonds can make the allies perform better in battle.

A bond between two allies is shown by their Support Level. By fighting adjacent to or healing each other, allies can earn support points. Earn enough and you can view a Support Conversation, which increases the pair’s Support Level.

Céline can support Louis, Alcryst, Kagetsu, Chloé and Etie. Plus maybe 4 or 5 more allies, as indicated by the scroll bar.

A bond between an ally and Emblem is shown by their Bond Level. As you fight with an Emblem, you’ll earn Bond experience. As your Bond Level increases, you can view Bond Conversations.

Lapis has achieved Bond Level 5 with Sigurd. For the record, every character can equip/Bond with every Emblem.

Strengthening the Bond Between Allies

When allies with a high Support Level fight adjacent to one another, they’ll receive a Support Bonus, which is a temporary boost to stats. The higher the Support Level, the bigger the stat boost.

The footage of Amber fighting alongside Seadall has been seen twice already.

With an A support, Seadall grants Amber 10 Hit, 6 Crit and 5 Ddg.

The map is an icy one that we hadn’t seen before. It’s divided into three rows and it seems you’re encouraged to march three separate groups through them.

Strengthening the Bond With Emblems

As an Emblem’s Bond Level increases, new Sync skills can be unlocked and the character will receive bigger stat boosts. These boons are only available while the Emblem’s ring is equipped. If a ring is unequipped, the Bond Level will be retained though.

In the video, the player checks some of Sigurd’s Bond Level bonuses.

• Level 1: Canter (after an action, can move 2 squares), Hit rate+10, Gallop (Movement +5), Override (attacks enemies in a line and move to opposite end; limited to melee sword and lance) and Ridersbane (bonus damage versus Cavalry)
• Level 2: Lance Prowess: Heavy Lv. 1 (when equipped with Lance, Might +2, Avoid -10)
• Level 3: Momentum (when attacking after moving, increases Might by 1 for each square moved, max +10)
• Level 4: Hit rate +15
• Level 5: Unlock Skill Inheritance
• Level 6: Lance Prowess: Heavy Lv. 2

As a reminder, you can inherit skills from Emblems via Skill Inheritance.

Growth

As you travel in search of the rings, you’ll inevitably encounter powerful foes. If you don’t want to lose allies on the battlefield, it’s in your best interest to toughen up your allies, so they can stand strong in battle.

The footage of Clanne fighting, Rosado dueling with Rosado and Alcryst class-changing to Axe Armor is from today’s trailer, covered in our analysis here.

Gather Experience to become Stronger

During battles, your allies can earn experience points and Level, boosting their stats like Strength, Defence, Speed. etc. One point of Strength increases damage dealt by 1, one point of Defence reduces damage received by 1 and so forth.

When a character Levels Up, their stat gains depend on the character themselves and their class. Multiple stats can increase during a Level Up.

Boucheron gains HP +2 here, so his HP growth must be pretty dang high.

You earn more experience points when defeating foes. The easiest way to grow fast is to finish off foes with allies that you want to Level Up.

The example shows Alfred earning 4 exp from damaging a foe, while Céline gets 26 exp from defeating a foe.

Class Change to New Heights

Allies all begin in a particular class, but when they reach a certain Level, they can Class Change to a different class using items.

Their Level will reset to one, but the stats they gained before Class Change and any skills inherited from Emblems will remain.

You can also use an item to return to your original class in the same manner.

The left example shows Framme using a Master Seal to change from a Martial Monk to Master Monk, an Advanced class. When becoming an Advanced class, your stats will generally increase a lot and you may gain access to more weapons (due to a higher weapon rank).

The right example shows Framme using a Second Seal to change from a Martial Monk to Archer, another Base class. When changing to a class in the same tier, your stats won’t increase overall, but you can earn more experience points.

This time, Framme has Talents in Sword and Bow, in addition to Staff and Body Arts. Her available classes include Sword Fighter, Archer, Sword Armor, Sword Knight, Sword Flier and Master Monk.

Powering Up Emblems

Emblems are reliable partners who fight alongside their allies during battle. The more they fight together, the more they’ll bring out their allies’ abilities.

Skill Inheritance

Normally, rings must be equipped to benefit from an Emblem’s skills. If you fight together with an Emblem and develop a strong enough bond, you can unlock Skill Inheritance, enabling you to equip their skills without requiring their ring.

Skill Inheritance requires a certain Bond Level (seems to be 5) to unlock and SP is required to inherit skills (can be earned by fighting with Emblems).

Allies can equip a limited number of inheritable skills (seems to be 2).

The footage shows Alear inheriting skills from Marth, taken from the Somniel trailer.

Skill Inheritance is available via the Ring Chamber at the Somniel.

How to Gather Experience

Outside of story battles, you can also engage in optional battles. Doing lots of these can lead to your allies growing in spades.

Vanquish Foes in Skirmishes

In-between major battles, you can battle in Skirmishes, where enemies have appeared on the map.

You can earn experience from these like in story battles, so it’s a handy shortcut for powering up your army.

The world map and battle footage is from today’s trailer. If you’re curious, please check out the trailer analysis, while searching for “Grande Soeur Bridge”.

Train with Allies and Emblems

At the Somniel, you can train together with allies or Emblems, to accumulate experience points.

In the “Normal” Arena, you can battle randomly selected allies in mock combat. There’s a limit to the number of attempts though (seems to be 3).

Oops, Alear loses to Citrinne by wielding a Lightning Sword. This targets Citrinne’s Res stat, which is probably very high.

In the “Emblem” Arena, you can spend bond fragments to battle a chosen Emblem in mock combat. On top of earning experience, you can raise your Bond Level with Emblems.

Alcryst wins against Ike by shooting his bow at close quarters. It seems range doesn’t matter in the Arena. Well, every character can fight every Emblem and not all Emblems can cover all ranges.

All of this is accessible via the Arena at the Somniel.

Somniel

The Somniel is a floating palace where the protagonist once slumbered. It acts as a vital base for your long adventure and you can access it at any time using the power of the Divine Dragon. The Somniel is vast, with a variety of facilities for visitors to freely enjoy.

90% of everything in this sub-section has already been covered in the “Welcome to the Somniel” trailer, which we analysed here.

Using Facilities

Café Terrace is a communal rest spot, where you can order food from the appointed chef. Come here to invite allies for a meal, to strengthen your bonds and boost your stats for the next battle.

Louis and Céline are just chilling, while I think Lapis is today’s chef? By the corner is the notice board, where you can manage various things.

At the Somniel’s entrance Plaza, there are numerous shops. In preparation for upcoming battles, you can purchase weapons and supplies, as well as forge weapons. You can also order outfits and accessories for use within the Somniel.

Alfred looks pretty serious, standing in from the Armory.

Activities

By speaking to certain allies, you can partake in special mini-games.

Strength Training: Take on three types of exercises, to temporarily boost the protagonist’s stats. The boosted stat depends on the exercise, so choose the one that best suits you.

Fishing: Cast a line wherever you want, then begin reeling in once the float sinks, to catch your fish.

Wyvern Ride: Hop on board a wyvern and shoot floating targets to achieve a high score.

The footage is all recycled from the Somniel trailer. Hey, if it’s already there, why not use it?

Special Facilities

At the Somniel, you can access many peculiar spaces that don’t exist in the outside world. Inside, you can perform special activities only found there.

Ring Chamber

An area where the Emblem Rings are safeguarded; a holy place where you can perform activities related to Emblems.

Skill Inheritance: Allows your allies to inherit various skills from Emblems.

Engage Weapons: Use special materials to enhance the weapons available when Engaged.

Create/Meld Bond Rings: Obtain Bond Rings by spending a certain amount of bond fragments. Bond Rings can be equipped in place of Emblem Rings, boosting your stats, while allowing you to gain a bit of SP. You can also combine multiples of the same Bond Ring to make a stronger one.

Polish Rings: Clean an Emblem Ring that’s become dirty after a battle and earn Bond experience..

Everything here was shown in the Somniel trailer, except enhancing Engage weapons.

You can use materials earned from Tempest Trials and Relay Trials to boost the stats of your Emblem’s weapons, usable when Engaged.

Stats that can be boosted are: Might, Hit, Avoid, Critical, Dodge, Dexterity, Speed, Defence and Resistance. These match the crystals (eg. Might Crystal) earned as rewards.

Along the bottom is a record of your materials. Towards the left appear to be tomes related to bonus damage; the icons correspond to Corrupted, Dragon, Flier, Armor and Cavalry.

While the player is selecting the weapons, we see Marth’s 3rd (and final) Engage weapon is indeed the Falchion. The player then chooses to enhance Celica’s Seraphim.

Going from Level 1 to 2 seems to boost stats by 5 (4 for Might). In total, you can boost stats 16 times, although it’s unclear what the individual stat cap is. If you mess up, you can reset the distribution.

Arena

An otherworldly space cut off from the outside world. You can train against allies and Emblems to earn experience.

In the “Normal” Arena, you can battle randomly selected allies in mock combat. There’s no charge to enter, but there is a limit to the number of attempts (seems to be 3). On top of experience, you can earn support points.

In the “Emblem” Arena, you can spend bond fragments to battle a chosen Emblem in mock combat. There is no limit to the amount of attempts. On top of earning experience, you can raise your Bond Level with Emblems.

We just covered this in the Growth sub-section, but they explained the limits a bit more.

Tower of Trials (Online Play)

At the furthest part of the Somniel is a space building that lets you momentarily travel through time and space to take on various trials.

Here, you can connect to the Internet and play against or with other players. Outrealm Trials and Relay Trials require a (paid) Nintendo Switch Online subscription.

Tempest Trials: A trial where you must clear a series of consecutive maps. You can choose various difficulties.

Seems similar to Tempest Trials from FE Heroes, but without a scoring system? In that case, maybe they should’ve called it Chain Challenge instead…

You can earn materials for enhancing Engage weapons here.

Despite being listed here, Tempest Trials is an offline mode! So don’t worry, you can upgrade your Engage weapons without needing to go online.

Relay Trials: A trial where you try and complete a map by working together with other players, while passing the baton like a relay race.

This mode looks intriguing, but there’s very little to go off, right now.

At the start, you can pick various maps, like Plains, Meadow, Mountain, Forest or Desert. The difficulty could be tied to the map (the first 3 are all Normal). Rewards include crystals used for enhancing Engage weapons.

From my understanding, this is a co-op mode where you take turns to defeat the enemy. At some point, you’ll pass control over to the next player, when it says “Player Change”. When this occurs, you can leave a preset message for the next player. You choose various characters, including Lumera and Emblems.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think you’ll tag team with a second player? On the map, you can see two instances of Lyn and two instances of Ike, so there are at least two players.

The bit that confuses me is where it says “Turns: 2 x 5 players”. Is that 2 players taking 5 turns each? Or 5 players taking 2 turns each? Or something else, entirely?

Anyway, Relay Tickets are needed to enter a match; the player here has 3.

Outrealm Trials: A trial where you can create your own map and play against other players’ armies (controlled by the computer) on their maps.

In other words, Aether Raids from FE Heroes. Rewards seem to be random gift items. So don’t stress too much about winning or not.

Socialising with Allies

At the Somniel, allies and Emblems can enjoy their time however they please. When you speak to them, you can enjoy special conversations. There’s a good chance you’ll catch a glimpse of them you wouldn’t normally see and get to know one another better.

Support Conversations with Allies

When enough support points have been gained by allies, a Support Conversation can be viewed. After viewing it, the Support Level between the pair will increase.

The example shows Timerra trying to be friendly with Ivy.

Bond Conversations with Emblems

When an Emblem and ally have gained enough Bond experience, a Bond Conversation can be viewed. After viewing it, the Bond Level between the pair will increase.

Oddly, unlike previous Bond Conversations, the video only shows the first half. It cuts off before Lyn gets to answer…