Weapon Triangle & Break
The weapon triangle mechanic returns in Fire Emblem Engage.
Like in the past:
- Sword beats Axe
- Axe beats Lance
- Lance beats Sword
In addition:
- Body arts beat Dagger, Bow and Tome
When initating combat against a foe while you have a weapon triangle advantage, you can trigger Break on the foe.
A foe inflicted with Break cannot attack until the end of their next combat, allowing you to attack without being counter-attacked.
Enemies can also inflict Break on your units, so you need to pay attention to what weapons everyone’s got.
Smash
Certain “heavy” weapons like the Blade, Greatlance or Greatlance series weapons or Aymr can trigger Smash, which knocks the enemy back one square.
To trigger Smash, you must initiate combat with the applicable weapon. The user will then strike after the opponent and cannot follow-up.
If knock back cannot happen because there’s an obstruction, the enemy will be inflicted with Break instead.
Chain Attacks
Users in a Backup class (eg. Axe Fighter) or with the Dual Strike skill can provide assist attacks called Chain Attacks.
When a character attacks an enemy, if any Chain Attack capable allies can attack the enemy from their current position, those allies will participate in a Chain Attack before the normal combat begins.
To make it easier to Chain Attack, you can give Chain Attack capable allies long-ranged weapons.
Chain Guard
Users in a Qi Adept class (eg. Martial Monk) can use the Chain Guard command to protect adjacent allies from enemy attacks.
Protecting an ally from an enemy attack will consume up to 20% of the user’s max HP. Chain Guard cannot be used if the user has less than 100% HP.
Draconic Time Crystal
This is Fire Emblem Engage‘s version of Mila’s Turnwheel or Divine Pulse.
During battles, if you make a mistake, you can access the Draconic Time Crystal via the main menu. This will allow you to scroll through previous actions and return to a previous state, so you can try something different.
On Normal, the Time Crystal has infinite charges. Meanwhile, on Hard and Maddening, it’s limited to 10 charges.
Battleground Exploration
It’s not just the Somniel that you can explore.
After a battle, you can roam around a portion of the battleground. You can speak with allies and pick up various items, such as gifts or resources, or befriend animals for the Somniel’s Farmyard.
Class Change
The Class Change system is a mix of FE: Awakening and Three Houses.
Like usual, you can use a Master Seal when you’re Level 10+ in a Base class to upgrade to an Advanced class. Eg. from Lance Cavalier to Paladin.
Also, you can use a Second Seal to change to different classes in the same (or lower) tier. Eg. from Paladin to General.
In addition to the Level and item requirement, changing classes also requires having certain weapon Proficiencies. Eg. you need a Lance Proficiency to class-change into Lance-exclusive classes.
It seems everyone begins with at least one or two Proficiencies, corresponding to their starting class. One of these will be an innate Proficiency, which may boost the applicable weapon Proficiency by one rank.
Additional Proficiencies can be inherited from Emblems.
Note: A list of classes can be found here.
Supports
Of course supports are back.
As characters fight adjacent to or heal one another, they may gain support points. When a pair reaches enough points, you can view a Support Conversation, which increases their Support Level.
The higher the Support Level, the more stat boosts the pair will get for fighting adjacent to one another.
World Map
The world map from FE Awakening etc. is back. You can travel between designated locations, towards the next story battle, paralogues and skirmishes (optional battles in previously cleared maps).
At the Somniel, you can invest countries, to boost the chance of encoutering rare monsters in skirmishes.
Forging
Forging can be done at the Smithy in the Somniel.
By exchanging Iron/Steel/Silver Crystals and Gold, you can improve your current weapon or evolve it into a different one. It seems you can improve a weapon up to 5 times (could change).
Furthermore, you can engrave weapons with an Emblem to receive big stat boosts. An individual Emblem can only be engraved to one weapon, but you can freely change what weapon they’re engraved to.