Fire Emblem Engage has just been released and it is both a true return to form and an evolution of the classic Fire Emblem formula. From its strategic tactical combat, the lovable cast of characters and the plethora of things to do, Engage has plenty to get involved in as you explore the world of Lythos.
With this much stuff, there will obviously be plenty that players may miss or overlook. Whether it be related to combat, social mechanics or the Somniel, Fire Emblem Engage has a lot of different things that new, and old players alike, can learn about the game. These tips can help enhance your gameplay experience in many ways by making progression easier, improving combat viability or other useful benefits.
Here are 7 useful tips, for beginners and experienced players, in Fire Emblem Engage.
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Visit the Somniel After Every Battle
Our first tip for Fire Emblem Engage may seem simple but it has the potential to save you a lot of time. After every battle, skirmish or major story encounter in Fire Emblem Engage, you’ll have to depart the mission. Upon departing you’ll be asked where you wish to go – the World Map or to the Somniel, your home base – and many players eager to get on with the story may wish to jump headlong into the next mission.
However, there is a great many boons that you can claim by visiting the Somniel after every battle you wage, big or small. Travelling to the Somniel allows you to claim any new gifts such as Pretty Pebbles and Spirit Gems, which refresh after every battle. This also restores the 3 uses for the Training section of the Somniel: this is key to levelling up your units more efficiently and increasing the Bond rating between your various characters.
The main reason to emphasise going after every battle instead of jumping straight to the next Mission or Paralogue is that you will miss out on these benefits. While seemingly small, the Bond boosts you get from Training and Gifts massively stack up over time, and the additional EXP you go through training can push your units over the edge they need before the next fight. Taking a detour to the Somniel allows you to prepare, stock up and improve your characters. Every little helps, after all.
The Somniel
Prioritise Emblem Training Using Bond Fragments
Our next Fire Emblem Engage tip revolves around Bond Fragments. These are a special kind of currency that you can acquire from redeeming achievements, finding them around the Somniel or talking to allies after battles. The main place where you can spend Bond Fragments is on Bond Rings, accessories similar to Emblem Rings that provide your team with bonus stats. You can spend up to 1000 Fragments to summon 10 random Bond Rings from different Fire Emblem games.
While this is the main focus, don’t ignore the other main area where you can spend Bond Fragments. In the Training section of the Somniel, you can spend Fragments on Emblem Training: this is a unique form of training where you can instantly increase the Bond Level between a unit and an Emblem. The cost is fairly cheap, too, only amounting to about 500 Fragments to instantly raise a Bond from 1 to 5.
Emblem Training
The most important part of Emblem Training is that you can use it to give your entire team stat buffs and bonuses via the Skill Inheritance system. When the Bond Level between a unit and an Emblem reaches 5, that unit can then inherit certain skills from them in the Ring Chamber. Usually, Emblem Skills can only be used on the character holding their Emblem Ring, but inherited skills can be used whenever. This is an insanely useful feature that you may accidentally overlook.
For example, I can level Kagetsu and Lyn’s Bond to Level 5 using Emblem Training, and then inherit the +2 Speed skill, allowing Kagetsu to counter-attack more effectively. In combat, Lyn’s Ring will be on another character like Etie, but Kagetsu will still benefit from that +2 Speed bonus (so long as the skill is equipped). Every single one of your characters can be boasting bonus Speed, Strength or some other stat by simply investing in this system. Or they can have access to unique Skills like Lucina’s Dual Assist or Lyn’s Speedstealer.
While the dopamine rush from gacha-pulling Bond Rings may feel better at the moment, do not skip over the power that Emblem Training can offer you. Effective use of the Training mechanic can improve the viability, strength and versatility of your entire team tenfold. Just remember to actually equip the skills you inherit (as they aren’t automatically slotted onto your characters) via the Inventory menu.
Inherited Skills
Adopt Lots of Dogs
While this may sound self-explanatory purely on the basis that lots of dogs are cute, there is a more strategic component to it, as well. After progressing through the main story, you will be able to adopt various kinds of animals from around Lythos. Once in your care, they will reside in the Farm area of the Somniel, where you can switch out which critters you interact with.
When these animals are out and about in the Somniel, they will bring you certain items after each battle. The type of items they will give you varies from creature to creature, and you will receive one item per animal you have out (so up to a maximum of 5 items). Cats will bring you fish, birds will lay eggs and sheep will give you milk.
Dogs are the best and most important companions to place in the Somniel, though. They have the chance to bring Iron Ingots, Steel Ingots or Silver Ingots each time you visit them. These are all insanely useful upgrade items for weapon refinement. Iron Ingots are easy enough to scrounge up from after battle exploration and you can purchase Steel Ingots, but it’s the Silver Ingots that are the biggest prize. You need a lot of these later in the game for refining unique and Silver Weapons, so gathering as many of them as you can is a massive help.
If you adopt and then put 5 dogs in the Somniel, you will have a very high chance of getting at least 1-3 Silver Ingots after every single fight. This is much more useful than the salmon or milk you would receive from other animals, taking the weight off your shoulders slightly in regards to upgrading. Plus, who doesn’t want the Somniel to be full of dogs?
Lots of Good Dogs
Use the Ally Notebook to Find Optimal Gifts
Something else that you can do in the Somniel is give gifts to your party members. This is a great way to raise Alear’s Support Bond with other characters, raising it bit by bit with each gift. Pretty Pebbles and Spirit Gems are gifts that can be found around the Somniel and are favoured by all your allies, but are limited in number. Other gifts can be bought from the thrift shop, though, with more selective characteristics.
These gifts were made with certain characters in mind: give a training gift to someone who likes flowers and the Bond gain will be far lower than if you gave them an ideal gift. Some of the characters are very obvious with what they like and dislike – Hortensia, for instance, loves cute stuff – but some are a bit more subdued. So how do you figure out what gifts to give them?
The answer is in the Ally Notebook, found in the Reference tab. Usually reserved for checking on Bond and Emblem statuses, the Reference tab also contains a section dedicated to all your allies. At first, it merely contains pretty surface level – starting class, their birthday, some basic info – but it will fill out as your Bond with that character deepens. At a Rank C Bond (which can easily be earned from a single Spirit Gem), you will learn that character’s likes and dislikes: this is what you can use to determine that character’s optimal gift.
Chloé likes folk food, fairy tales and animals, so gifts such as Spicy Meat will be her preferred choice. Giving characters the gifts that they actually like is key to raising their Bonds: while there isn’t any romance in Fire Emblem Engage, hitting A Rank is extremely beneficial in providing bonus stats and aid. Give the Ally Notebook a peek if you need some gift ideas when you run out of Spirit Gems and Pretty Pebbles.
Ally Notebook
Cooking Tips
As you progress through the main story you will eventually unlock the cooking mechanic in the Somniel. Here you can raise your Bonds with 2 of your allies using a meal, with this meal also being made by one of your companions. It’s a quick and easy way to raise those Bonds with several characters at once. However, cooking is a difficult process and sometimes it doesn’t go so well.
Depending on factors including your chef, your guests and your ingredients, the meal you make can range from F to S rank. The better the score, the better the stat increases you get so you want to get the best score. There are several key factors in raising that score:
- Picking the right meal for the chef
- Choosing the right guests
- Getting the best ingredients
The Kitchen is Open
Each time you go to cook, the chef will be random and they will have a select amount of meals that they are good at making. A small star icon to the right of each meal denotes the food they are good at making. This is also accompanied by their skill rating – which ranges from Capable to Skilled. You should only really be making food that the chef is good at making, so keep an eye out for that sparkle symbol.
The next step is to choose your guests correctly. If you simply want to increase the Bond between two specific units, this isn’t as important as picking the right food for the chef. However, pick a meal that the chef is good at making and is also liked by both guests if you want the maximum Bond and stat bonus. You can tell what food a guest either likes or dislikes at the bottom of each meal.
Lastly, the bonus ingredients that you add to each meal will raise the potential stat yield. High-quality extra ingredients can be harvested from around the Somniel, from the end of battle exploration or from donating to the various Kingdoms (especially Firene) and they are added on as toppings at the end of a meal. Combine all of this together and you’ll be able to make the best meal in all of Lythos for all your companions.
Best Meals for the Chef
How to Get Easy Gold and EXP
The next Fire Emblem Engage tip relates to money and experience. One thing that you will learn fairly quickly in Fire Emblem Engage is that you will want a lot of Gold and a lot of EXP at fairly frequent intervals. Whether you want to bring a benched party member back up to speed, or you need a quick flow of cash to refine your new Silver Dagger, EXP and Gold are always in high demand.
Unfortunately, while you may get some pocket money from aligning with each of the kingdoms during the main story missions, that will likely quickly vanish as you buy new equipment or donations. The situation can get especially dire later in the game where a single weapon refinement can cost upwards of 3000 Gold, or where a single Physic staff costs 2000. Keeping your army up to date with the best gear has its costs, after all.
There are two easy ways to get additional Gold and EXP, however. These come from the Silver and Gold Corrupted. As you travel around Lythos and complete various quests and Paralogues, different types of skirmishes will pop up in regions you previously explored. Sometimes these are just regular fights with regular enemies, but there is a small chance that it will be either a Silver or Gold Skirmish.
These battles award bonus rewards and materials for both completion and participation. During Silver Corrupted Skirmishes, your units will earn bonus EXP when they defeat a Corrupted enemy. Similarly, your units will take a large bag of Gold from some of the Corrupted they kill on a Gold Corrupted Skirmish. The bonus EXP and Gold you get aren’t small sums, either, so they’re well worth doing.
Gold and Silver Corrupted have a slight chance to appear on the map after you complete a battle. This rate starts off quite low (around 10%) but donating to the Kingdoms around Lythos will increase it. For example, increasing Firene’s Donation level by one stage will boost the Gold and Silver Corrupted chance up to 20%. You have to spend some Gold to make some Gold, it seems. Definitely keep your eye out for these Skirmishes whenever you can.
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- Silver Corrupted
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- Gold Corrupted
Check Your Equipment Before Waiting in Battle
Lastly is a tip for Fire Emblem Engage that, while not overly flashy, may save your life in combat. Whenever you have to fight in Fire Emblem Engage you will inevitably hit a situation where you cannot reach a target in your round of movement, but they will certainly reach you in theirs. This can lead to some tricky situations, especially if the enemy is a special unit like an Armoured foe or a Flying foe. If you don’t have the correct weapons or equipment, those enemies can lay you out fast and even have the potential to quickly take you out.
However, if you’re in this situation and you can see that an enemy will likely attack next round, take a look at your inventory before waiting. Instead of just hoping and praying that the enemy misses, you can prepare in advance for their attack. For example, if I’m using Alear and my target is an Armoured enemy, I can prepare by switching my weapon from Liberation to the Armourslayer. This way, when the enemy does inevitably attack, I can be sure that I will actually be able to deal some decent damage because I made sure to switch to the best counter.
In some situations, this can result in you killing the enemy before they can get off a counterattack (and potentially kill you). Even if you cannot secure the kill, more damage will only ever aid your remaining allies in taking the foe down. This is a simple tip but a very useful one that will help you in every facet of the game.
Check Your Items
Those were 7 useful tips for Fire Emblem Engage.
