Fire Emblem Engage Gameplay Trailer Shows Female Protagonist in Action; Emblem Ring Mechanics Detailed

Today Nintendo and Intelligent Systems released a new trailer and details about the upcoming Fire Emblem tactical JRPG Fire Emblem Engage.

This time around, the trailer puts the female version of the protagonist front and center, while the male version was prominently featured in previous trailers. Of course, her hair is no less wildly colored even when it’s longer.

This time around, we learn about the game’s main mechanic, the Emblem Rings. Each ring hosts the spirit of a legendary warrior from past games of the series and our characters can wear the rings to synchronize with the related hero. They can also enter “Engage” state.

This lets them use a special weapon named “Engage Weapon,” special skills called “Engage Skill,” and powerful super moves called “Engage Attack.”

There are also “Synchronized Skills” that are activated just by equipping the ring, while Engage Skills require the character to be in the Engage state. That Engage stat lasts three turns and then the character will return to simply synchronized.

While every character has its own battle style as usual, dragon characters are particularly compatible with the Emblem Rings, so their Engage Skills and Techniques receive additional effects.

Looking at the skills themselves, if you wear Marth’s ring, his Synchronized Skill makes it harder for enemies to counterattack successfully when you attack. His Engage Weapon, the rapier, causes heavy damage to cavalry and armored enemies. His Engage skill increases the number of your attacks by 1. Finally, his Engage Technique called “Star Rush” unleashes a series of energy attacks that deal high damage. If used by a dragon, this chain of attacks includes two additional strikes.

Sigurd’s Engage Skill greatly increases your movement’s range, while his Engage Technique charges through enemies in a line dealing massive damage.

Celica’s Engage Skill lets you split magic attacks between two targets. Damage is also halved. Her Engage Technique lets you warp to a distant enemy ignoring terrain and dealing a powerful blow.

Byleth is a teacher, so his Engage Skills buffs nearby allies for one turn. His Engage Technique resets the turn of up to 4 adjacent allies and buffs them.

Corrin’s Engage Skill lets you apply terrain effects to tiles to control the battle, while her Engage Technique attacks up to three enemies in front of her and applies an evasion down effect to the tiles affected.

Lyn’s Engage Skill creates 4 afterimages around you that can be used as decoys and will support with chain attacks. Her Engage Technique is a powerful 5-hit long-range strike.

You can check out the trailer below.

Update: the trailer in English has been released, providing a look at the same concepts described above, but in a language most can understand. You can check it out below.

Fire Emblem Engage is a strategy JRPG like all mainline Fire Emblem games, and it will release exclusively on Nintendo Switch on Jan. 20, 2023.