Quick First Impressions of Fire Emblem Engage (Up to Chapter 8)

 

So I wanted to do a quick write-up of my thoughts on Fire Emblem Engage so far. I got the game yesterday afternoon, and have been playing on Hard / Classic. I just beat Chapter 8, and wanted to leave my initial first impressions on the game.

I'll get the story and characters out of the way, since I don't have much to say about them. My thoughts on the story echo what everyone else is saying. The storytelling is shallow and vapid, the characters are bland, and Lumera's death scene isn't very good. In fact, you could make an argument that it's worse than Mikoto's death scene in Fates. I also really dislike how much pandering to Alear there is. If someone were to take a shot every time the words "Divine One" was used, you'd die of alcohol poisoning by Chapter 3 or 4. 

Now that this is out of the way, let's focus on the gameplay, shall we?

Positives

+ The Break Mechanic: I love the Break mechanic! It makes the weapon triangle more important and relevant. It also makes the game more Player Phase oriented. It's hard to juggernaut / tank through the game when your unit can be robbed of counterattacking. It also encourages the player to have a more diverse team that covers all the different weapon types so that they can take advantage of the mechanic. 

I also love how it doesn't apply to Armor Knights! It makes Armor Knights more useful (Louis is the first character in my party to get promoted, and I just reclassed Amber to an Armor Knight), and it makes fighting them more difficult. Most Armor Knights in this game are so durable that you have to change up your tactics and either use anti-armor weapons or use magic. This gives me Berwick Saga vibes, when armored enemies were so tanky that you had to use magic and Hammers to deal with them. Any game that can remind me of how glorious Berwick Saga was is definitely doing something right.

+ The Emblems Are Balanced! : When I first heard about Sigurd and Celica's Emblems, I immediately feared that they would break the game in half. I am pleasantly surprised that they don't. This game is obviously balanced around the use of emblems, and the game expects you to use them to your advantage. The fact that you can only use them for 3 turns is another positive that this game has going for it.

+ The Difficulty: I am playing on Hard / Classic, and am pleasantly surprised that I've had to reset quite a bit on some chapters. I can't speak for Maddening, but Hard / Classic is both challenging and fair. I've never felt like the game screwed me over with b.s. Every reset was because my strategy was lacking. Speaking of a lack of bs, NO AMBUSH SPAWNS! It is good to see that this game rightfully steered of that awful mechanic. 

+ Chain Stuff: Having certain enemies be "Backup" fighters that perform chain strikes, and having healers use Chain Guard is a pretty ingenious idea. It waters down the Pair Up mechanic from Awakening and Fates, and relegates it to special niches with certain characters. It can reward smart positioning without being super broken or dominating the game.

+ Skills: This game seems to have the best implementation of personal skills out of all the games that use them. I find myself actively making decisions based on them, and they seem to reward smart positioning. Stuff like Alear getting Camilla's personal skill, Framme and Clanne's personal skills providing boosts to Alear's stats, Celine's personal skill boosting recovery items, etc. It's also helpful that Engage will show you just what skills are in effect, which helps to remind the player that they're there, and that they're making an impact on the gameplay. 

+ Weapons and Forging: While I'm still a fan of weapon durability, I don't find myself missing it too much here. My first impression is that the weapons are balanced. I could be wrong on this, and it will later turn out that there was the "One True Weapon to Break Them All", but so far there doesn't seem to be any massive imbalance in weaponry. No weapon feels too strong, or feels too weak. Again, this could be subject to change but the game is off to a good start on this point.

I still haven't managed to wrap my head around how forging works, but it also comes off as more balanced than previous titles. I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Is there something about forging that I'm missing, or is the mechanic more balanced here than in previous titles?

Negatives

+ Underwhelming Map Design: So far, I haven't been impressed by the map design in this game. I can't think of a map that I've hated, but I also can't think of any maps that I love either. Chapter 5 gets my vote for being the best designed map that I've played so far. The thief getting the treasure was actually difficult to get to, and I had to smartly use Vander with Sigurd's Override to get to him in time. The enemy reinforcements make choke pointing a bad idea, which means that the map itself works incredibly well with the Break mechanic.  

Chapter 4 is also pretty good. Your army is split up into two teams, and has to work together to get to the enemy boss, the enemy reinforcements are well positioned and succeed at putting pressure on the player, and the enemy composition is pretty good too. Overall, it's a pretty good map. 

The Chapter where you get Anna is also pretty good. Again, you have to split your army up, and the thieves gunning for the treasure help to put some pressure on the player. 

The main flaw of may of these maps is that they don't have enough turtle disincentives. You can generally play slowly and methodically progress through some of the enemies just fine. I'll also add that the first three maps of the game are obvious tutorial maps, which get progressively more boring when replaying the game, and weren't even that good on a first playthrough.

I wish the map had more objectives than just "Kill Boss" with a sprinkling of Rout maps. 

+ Boss Resurrection Stone: This game brought back the Three Houses mechanic where you have to kill certain bosses more than once. It makes boss fights more tedious (though to be fair, it does make them slightly more challenging) and drags out the pacing of the fight.

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Final Thoughts: Not a fan of the story or the characters, but the gameplay gets more right than wrong. I'm happy to see the gameplay succeed on multiple levels. I'm hoping that the map quality improves, and that we get more objectives than either "Kill Boss" or "Rout". 

I like the gameplay. I'm not super hyped / over the moon about it, but I like it. It's way too early for me to declare it "The Best Gameplay Since (Insert FE Title Here)" but I can say that the gameplay is a positive that the game has going for it. 

Keep in mind, that I could totally change my mind about this as I get further in. Who knows what the later chapters will bring?

Fire Emblem Final Map Ranking Part 3

And now we've gotten to the part where the final maps are bad. Because of how many of them there are, I'm going to try to summarize the issues that make them so bad:

• Making the final chapter a simple boss rush against a final boss that's comically weak: Idounn, Fomortiis, Ashnard, FE 3 Medeus, Garon, and Grima are all weak final bosses that can be defeated rather easily. The accompanying maps is basically just "get your unit to this weak boss and kill them" except getting to said boss usually doesn't take that much work or effort to get there. Fire Emblem 3 Book 2 doesn't even have enemies present during the Player Phase (except for Medeus).

• Fire Emblem 12's final map isn't a joke on the higher difficulties, but it can feel like a slog fighting through really powerful enemies if you don't employ some kind of Rescue shenanigan strategies. Medeus is definitely not a joke in 12, but it feels like you have to proc a critical hit or two, because otherwise he'll take a while to kill. All the same, it's a bad idea. 

•  Shadow Dragon is a whole two tiers below FE 1 due to the fact that higher difficulties require suicide-revival strategies revolving around Tiki. Yeah, Marth isn't even a major factor in fighting Medeus despite the fact that the entire game builds up to him doing exactly that! Plus, when people bring up Shadow Dragon's final map on the highest difficulty, ambush spawn ballista always seem to make it into the conversation. That's a recipe for disaster and fury right there.

The Bullshit Final Maps

• Three Houses Maddening Mode - Azure Moon, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow: Azure Moon, Crimson Flower, and Silver Snow's final maps on Maddening involve ludicrous stat inflation, bs skills on enemies like Miracle and Amyr being an axe that has its own version of Galeforce called "Raging Storm" that can be used up to 6 times in Crimson Flower. Does anybody actually like the Maddening mode of these maps? That's a real question too. The Fire Emblem fandom disagrees on a lot, but it seems like most people came together to agree that these maps on Maddening were straight up trash.

• Conquest 

 Conquest Fans: "Conquest has a tough, but fair difficulty."

Also Conquest Fans: "Conquest Lunatic Endgame is bullshit!"

It's strange how Conquest is lauded as being a "fair" difficulty, and yet many of the fans of this game will also say that Conquest Lunatic Endgame is bullshit without seeing the contradiction. Out of curiosity, has anyone beaten the final map of Conquest Lunatic without rescue cheesing or using a Vantage Sorcerer build? I'm curious to see if that's possible, because as of now those are the only two strategies I can think of that actually work toward beating this map.

And that's the main problem: Conquest Lunatic Endgame makes normal play either impossible, or close to it. Like Birthright and Revelation, you can't save on this map so if you restart, you have to replay the previous map which is a monumentally dumb decision. Quite a few enemies have Inevitable End combined with the Enfeeble staff, Staff Savant, and Hidden Weapons so your characters get debuffed into oblivion. By Turn 5 the enemies on the map will have you locked down in a pincer formation, which further makes the map extremely unfun to deal with. A well designed endgame map shouldn't require strategies this specific to beat it. 

In Summation: These maps suck mostly because the final bosses are poorly designed, and these levels rely way too much on fighting said final boss. As mentioned before, the best designed final chapters are the ones that focus less on the final boss, and more on how to get to said final boss.

Fire Emblem Final Map Ranking Part 2

 Next on the list are the final maps that are okay: Holy War, Gaiden, Echoes, & The Verdant Wind route of Three Houses.

Holy War

What makes Holy War's final chapter stand out is that it's basically designed like an ordinary map of Holy War. Normally this would be a negative, given Holy War's controversial map design, but here it actually makes it better than the many maps in the "These Suck" tier. Each castle has its own army, and tries to do something differently. In Edda, you have a wall of status staves and ballistic siege tomes, Dozel throws a two-pronged attack of axe knights, Friege throws armored magic users, a mini boss like Hilda, and tries to attack you from behind with a bunch of bow knights.

Then you have to deal with some surprisingly powerful Pegasus Knights with Runeswords and Awareness, and then you kill Manfroy to free Julia so that she can get the awesomely powerful Book of Naga to kill Julius with. You also have to deal with Arion, who will try to capture your castle from behind, which is pretty fun.

It's a much more involved map than many of the ones on this list, which is why it's given a mid tier rank. However, it still plays like a normal Holy War map, for better or for worse. I appreciate the fact that you can't skip it, and that the focus is more on getting closer to the final boss, rather than on fighting the final boss themselves. It could be better, but it could also be so much worse. 

Gaiden / Echoes

Another example of a game with bad map design having an okay final chapter. Both maps have a lot of empty space between the player units and the enemies they need to kill, which is a typical element of Gaiden / Echoes map design. Once again, the enemies here are more or less the kind of enemies the player has had to deal with on their way here. The swamp section between them both can help bog down the pace of the chapter, since it will reduce the movement of most of your troops.  

Verdant Wind's Final Map

Despite what the tier list might suggest, Verdant Wind's final map actually goes in the mid tier, rather than the "bullshit" tier. Tier list maker didn't have an icon for all of the routes in Three Houses and since most of them suck, Verdant Wind was treated as the oddball. This map is a boss rush to get to Nemesis, but at the very least the player is required to kill the 10 Elites before they can get to Nemesis. That being said, it does lose a lot of points for being a simple swamp with enemies strewn about in a haphazard way. At least it's better than the final map of all the other routes.

Fire Emblem Final Map Ranking

 

A while back, someone asked me to rank all the final maps in Fire Emblem. That was roughly a year or more ago. Time flies, and I still hadn't gotten around to it. I apologize for taking so long, but here we go. Before ranking the final maps, I'd like to add a caveat that my memory of some of these games is a bit fuzzy. It's been forever since I've played the following games:

• Fire Emblem 1
• Shadow Dragon
• Birthright
• Revelations
• Awakening
• The Three Houses final maps 

The reason why I'm bringing this up is because for these maps I had to rely on the feedback of other people. If your memory of these maps is more recent than mine, feel free to let me know if I got . Now that this is out of the way, I will provide my rationale for the rankings.

Gold Standard Tier: Berwick Saga, Thracia 776, & Fire Emblem 7

I'd like to share two quotes about this map from an ltc player who beat this map in 6 turns: "Without a doubt, this is the most difficult mission in the game, whether playing casually or LTCing. " 

"This mission requires extremely precise movement, you'll see that Reese, Volo, Dean, Enid, Lynette, etc. need to maximize their move during the entire mission, making this the tightest map to LTC I have ever done, giving me some FE12 chapter 12 vibe."

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6DYxnEk5C8&t=1674s&ab_channel=Reploids)

Before the analysis begins, I would like to confirm what this player is saying. This is the most difficult map in the game, and it does indeed require precise movement. As far as I'm aware, 6 turns has been the fastest clear of this map, which means that you can't "skip" Berwick Saga's late game. Did I mention that I love Berwick Saga? Because I love Berwick Saga.

This will probably not come as no surprise to anyone who read my stuff on Berwick Saga, but I really do think this game has the best designed final map in the series. The best way to explain this is that Berwick Saga's final map really does feel like a "final exam" of the game. What's really cool about this final chapter is that it throws together a combination of powerful enemies that the player has had to deal with at least a few times previously in the game. 

• Black Riders with spears that deal more damage with each hex traveled: Check.
• Infinite range ballistic siege tomes: Check. 
• A dark mage boss with a tome that levels people down? Check.
• Super tanky Armored Knights? Check.
• Multiple dark mages with Berserk and Sleep orbs? Check.
• Powerful archers and crossbowmen with Overwatch that can halt your progress and snipe you? Check.

These are all enemies the player has had to face before. So whatever strategy the player had to use to beat them would be the same strategy they would use here. What is interesting is that all of these enemies are combined in the same level. Each part of the map feels like an obstacle course that requires a different strategy to beat. You're allowed to bring 15 characters and you really need to effectively utilize your team in order to win. 

Berwick Saga's final map focuses less on the final boss, and more on getting to the boss, which is a better recipe for success in terms of how final maps are actually made. 

Thracia 776 & Blazing Sword

I'm placing Thracia 776 and Blazing Sword's final maps in the same group because they're basically the same map: Fight powerful undead versions of bosses / characters that you've fought before closed off in different rooms before you get to the final boss. What makes these maps work is the same thing as what makes Berwick Saga's final map work: They focus more on getting to the final boss, rather than on fighting the final boss themselves. 

Between the two maps, I prefer Thracia's a little more since you have to split up your army, and seize multiple locations. Plus, Blazing Sword does emphasize fighting the final boss at the end when you get to the Fire Dragon a little bit more than Thracia does. That being said, they're minor differences in the grand scheme of things, and both deserve to be ranked like this. 

A Tier Final Maps: Radiant Dawn and Revelation

The next best final chapter in the series is Radiant Dawn's final map. Ashera is a much more interesting final boss to fight than most final bosses in the series. I appreciate how important Nihil is since you need to negate a powerful enemy skill that would otherwise deal quite a bit of damage. Ashera's AoE attacks are a fun way to spice up the map, and her Auroras can either heal her shield or deal damage. There's not much else to say about it, other than this map is very good. 

Fates: Revelation's Final Map: Anankos

I can't believe I'm about to say this but....Revelation's final map is actually pretty good. I know, it's shocking to say something positive about the map design of Revelation, but....this final map is very good. One interesting aspect is that Anankos himself is split up into three parts: His two hands and his head. In the meanwhile, enemy groups will spawn in different places in order to try and harass you. It's a unique design overall, but it works. As one commenter pointed out, "It can't be easily cheesed like Birthright's and isn't bullshit like Conquest's." (Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/5fztpt/fates_map_discussion_thread_18_revelations_endgame/#s)

Just to recap, you're trying to defeat different parts of the boss while having to play around all the enemies who want to kill you. That's a different philosophy to how other games design their final map, but it ultimately works. I've also been told that the Heirs of Fate version is even better, with the Dragon Vein and with making the reinforcements an even bigger threat. Much like Conquest and Birthright, it is a major negative that you can't save on this map, and if you restart you go back to the map before it. Overall, still a fun, unique final map that comes from a surprising place.

Fire Emblem 1

This one is a map that I'm not super familiar with, so I'm basing this one of off what others have said. It's difficult to talk about maps like these, because the warp skip strategy exists. I don't hold warp skip against a map, since warp is capable of breaking lots of maps. So, for the sake of consistency, I'm not going to hold warp against this map. So, how does it play without the warp staff? 

You have to split your army into multiple groups, and then fight through multiple enemies in order to get through to Medeus. It's pretty easy to defeat Medeus, so the real meat is getting to him (assuming that you don't skip the map with the warp staff). According to Fire Emblem WOD, this map manages to throw a lot of enemy reinforcements, and will continue to ramp up the pressure. Credit given where credit is due, that's really good design. One particular issue is that since this is an old school game, it would be bothersome to adjust which character goes where. Yes it is possible, but repositioning units would be a hassle on a map where that's important. 

Berwick Saga Map Design Review Part 5

 Chapter 5 Gaiden - Mountain Hunt

The main objective of this map is to either defeat or capture the enemies on the right hand side of the map and then escape. These enemies will either be injured or crippled. Crippled enemies often have very limited movement, can't fight, or perform other actions such as using healing items. Injured enemies can be crippled if you deal enough damage to them. 

 There are invisible enemies on the mountains near the injured and crippled enemies. There's also a boss and some assassins off to the left, and a treasure chest in the corner. There are yellow units on the top right corner that might help these enemies, if you don't kill / capture enough of them in time. It's pretty easy to get to these enemies first, so it's not a big deal. The treasure chest is never threatened, so that isn't much of a positive for the map. It's an okay map, overall.

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 5 Gaiden: Lumiere

The easiest way to sum up this map is this: Mediocre and underwhelming. The main objective is to free the npcs in the bottom dungeon, and then help them escape to the top right dock. The path forward is very linear, and once again the treasure chest at the top is unthreatened. The only interesting part of the map are the enemy reinforcements that show up behind the player. This sounds a lot more interesting than it is. There's plenty of time to react to these reinforcements, and you can still play relatively slow while killing them. 

Overall Rating: Below Average

Chapter 6

The main objective here is to let at least 3 NPCs escape, and then to escape afterward. At the beginning of the chapter, there's a mage named Enid who has to talk to these NPCs. After she talks to them, they will move toward the to the bottom right hand tile to escape. There's also another mage named Perceval who will show up in the bottom left hand corner that she can recruit. There's an NPC at the top right corner near a shop that has to be talked to more than once. If you do, he gives you a nice, valuable forgeable item.  

What's neat is that the map forces Enid to go in multiple different directions, and there are usually three different areas from which enemies can attack the player. This requires the player to split their army up into three, and defend these enemies from three different sides. Unfortunately, there's a glaring problem: The enemy density at the beginning of the map is really low. There are very few enemies at the beginning of the map, which makes the beginning and middle parts of the map rather slow. The first half of the map can be a bit too easy, since the enemies will be relatively easy to kill.

Thankfully, the map gets more intense toward the end as more enemies show up. Once that happens, the map becomes a lot more fun to play. Here, you have to play fast in order to get your entire army to escape. This is when the player actually has to turn their brain on. 

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 6 Gaiden - Phantom Corps

This map is a snooze fest. It's an open field with no side objectives. The main objective is to kill or capture the boss. The boss is an armored unit with "Magicbane", a skill that forces magic users to re-roll their accuracy with a maximum accuracy of 33 %. Basically it makes magic users miss hitting him. This makes him marginally more difficult to defeat, but not that much harder. The only remotely interesting part about this map is that enemy reinforcements spawn at various points in time. Even then, they don't really impact the way that this map is meant to be played. How lame.

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 6 Gaiden - Food Supply

This gaiden chapter is better than the previous one. At the start of the map, there are enemies that will run away from you, who are carrying food. These enemies will drop food after you kill them. After the map is finished, you get paid more money for each bag of food that you bring back.* These enemies start out at a relatively far distance from the player, and will to try to escape off the map, so the player does have to move with some speed, if they want to get all the dropped food.

*(Don't quote me on that. I could be wrong. If anyone is more knowledgeable about how this works, feel free to comment on this)

The boss on the throne will run away after being attacked once. Since he's on the wanted list, you'll want to either kill or capture him. It's more fun to try and figure out how to kill / capture him. There's an extra side objective that can make the map more challenging in a fun way: The yellow units on the cliff.

If the player leaves them alone, they won't do anything. However, if the player chooses to come near them, they will attack. They're all really tough to kill, which makes the map a bit more fun if the player goes for this side objective. The main benefits are high amounts of experience, since the yellow units are all high level enemies. I believe one of them drops something, although I'm not 100 % sure. The map is not half bad, and has enough to it to keep it entertaining for what's supposed to be a fairly short gaiden chapter.

Overall Rating: Decent

Chapter 7

Despite what this picture may suggest, this is actually a Fog of War map. The main objective is to rescue this NPC called Vester, and then escort him and the other captured NPCs to an escape point on the left-hand side of the map. There are two doors that need to be broken down, in addition to a tanky armored boss, a bunch of archers, and several armored spear wielding enemies. Oh, and you need to get Vester to the escape point (while having all your units) escape by 24 turns. The turn limit is relatively forgiving, but considering everything that you have to do, that turn limit can sneak up on you, if you're not actively moving forward every turn.

Even after dealing with the enemies on the fort, you still have to deal with all the enemies near the escape point. Interestingly enough, this requires the player to split their army up into two different groups. There are several houses throughout the map that will give the player stuff. One of them is really off to the side, which requires some strategizing on the player's part to make sure that whoever goes to that house can still escape in time. Oh, and there are enemies that will try to attack the player from behind too. Overall, this map is exciting, and I've enjoyed playing it in every playthrough.

Overall Rating: Excellent

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 6
• Pretty Good: 1
• Decent: 5

• Meh: 2
• Below Average: 2
• Fail: 3

Berwick Saga Map Design Review Part 4

 Chapter 3 Gaiden: The Maiden and the Mercenary

Here we have the first fog of war map in the game....and it sucks. This map has two objectives: Get your mage Aegina to talk to an NPC, and then Seize. This map has one glaring oversight: It doesn't account for how awesome Sherpa is. Sherpa is basically a promoted Mercenary who is the only character in the game that has a traditional Fire Emblem style enemy phase. Everyone else in your army cannot counterattack if they get hit by an enemy. Sherpa can. In addition to being able to actually counterattack, Sherpa also has a stupidly powerful prf rank sword, the Brymranger, that can attack multiple times consecutively. 

These factors all mean that Sherpa is plenty strong enough to solo all the enemies and the boss near the seize point. As a result, it really doesn't matter which characters you pick, because Sherpa's all you need. Thankfully, as powerful as Sherpa is, he won't be able to break any other map in the game by himself. That still doesn't change the fact that this map is super easy to break.

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 3 Gaiden: Thieves and Ponies

This gaiden chapter happens to be a solid one. There are thieves in the top right corner of the map who are trying to steal horses. Kill this thieves, or get the horses first, and they go in your inventory and can be used later. Horses in this game are treated like another resource that the player is expected to manage. They have HP, take damage with their rider, and when their HP reaches 0 they die and never come back. Horses can be bought, but they're relatively expensive.

All of this explanation is to say that horses are valuable, so when this chapter gives you the opportunity to have more, you will book it. As a result, this works as an effective turtle disincentive. Terrain is also cleverly implemented to act as an obstacle to the player. The boss, Seamus, moves from his fort and can run away from the player if his HP gets too low. (I could be wrong about this, so feel free to correct me, if I got that part wrong) Killing or capturing Seamus nets the player a good deal of gold, and Seamus isn't a pushover. Overall, this map is pretty good and is fairly fun to play.

Overall Rating: Pretty Good

Chapter 4

This is an escape chapter that's designed as a defense level. At the beginning of the map, there are wounded NPCs who are trying to escape. At least 7 of the 12 NPC allies have to escape. Once they've escaped, you have to have everyone in your army escape by 24 turns. Another important note is that whenever someone in Berwick Saga is crippled, they might not be able to move their full movement range. This can further complicate the map, since you'll have to defend your allies for a longer period of time than you normally would had their movement been normal. 

This part of the map is fairly simple since all you really need to do is move to the center and put your tanky characters in the chokepoints. However, this map has several side objectives which make it more interesting to play. There's a random spot in the north that has a secret item, there are several bandits on the left that drop valuable axes, and there's a side objective of collecting droppable shields from enemies.

There are two recruitable characters on this map: Daoud and Larentia. Larentia is the only flier that you get in this game, and Daoud is an Axe Knight. If you want to recruit Daoud, you need to make sure that all 12 NPCs escape. Larentia will talk to Reese on her own and will essentially recruit herself. 

Another side objective that I almost forgot about are the assassins that will also show up on the left. They provide gold, experience, and droppable items. It's definitely worth it to kill them. 

What's interesting about escape chapters in Berwick Saga is that they lure you into a false sense of security. It's really easy to think that you'll be able to escape far easier than it actually is. The terrain on this map limits movement, so it can and will take you longer to flee. This actually puts a great deal of pressure on the player, which makes the map more exciting and fun to play.

Overall Rating: Excellent

Chapter 4 Gaiden: Color Chord

Here comes the second fog of war map in this game. It's also not very good. There's no turtle disincentive and most of the enemies are relatively weak. The only noteworthy part of this map is the boss, Penelo. There's a special cutscene that happens if you get Sherlock to attack him first. It breaks an item of his that otherwise would put your characters to sleep. Unfortunately, his avoid is high. Like, really high. Think Gel from Binding Blade Sacae Route. Fighting Penelo feels like a massive gamble because getting an accuracy of 50 % or more on him can be a real struggle. He also has Vantage, which is even better in this game because the moment somebody gets hit is the moment that combat stops. So what I'm trying to say is...

Overall Rating: Fail

Chapter 4 Gaiden: Children's Hero

While this gaiden map is better than the previous one, it's still on the underwhelming side. The main premise of this gaiden chapter is to have your thief Sedy seize a house on the top left portion of the map. Meanwhile, you have to avoid stepping into the range of all the yellow troops on the top right corner of the map. 

There's a spot on the map that will lower the drawbridge so that the rest of your army can cross over to the other side. Most of the enemies are weak, except for the boss and the goons right by him. Enemy reinforcements will show up, but by the time that they do, the player will most likely be close to beating the map. There are no side objectives here, and not much else noteworthy going on. Like I said before, this map is underwhelming.

Overall: Meh

Chapter 5

This map is a defense map that can be beaten faster by killing the boss. It also has a couple of smaller side objectives in the form of capturing an enemy thief, and collecting stuff from a nearby house. There isn't really much to say about this map. Various enemies will drop items for forging or weapons and gold. There's also a recruitable Armor Knight called Marcel. You just have to talk to him with Reese. 

There's a house that can bring your troops behind enemy lines straight to the boss. Keep in mind that the boss is tanky, and Goebbels (yes you read that right) is a really strong miniboss that will wreck anyone nearby. Overall, this map can either be played super fast for the LTC vets, or it can be played like a simple defense map and both types of players will find something to enjoy here.

Overall Rating: Decent

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 5
• Pretty Good: 1
• Decent: 2

• Meh: 2
• Below Average: 1
• Fail: 2

Berwick Saga Map Design Review: Part 3

 Chapter 2-1: In Pursuit of Thieves

Of the first few chapters in the early part of Berwick Saga, this is easily one of the worst designed. I tried to find a better picture of this map, but this is the best I could do. As it shows, The map is a little too straightforward:

1) Go to through the narrow part of the map and kill the relatively easy enemies.

2) Unlock the doors to get horses in your inventory (yes, that is a thing you can do in Berwick Saga) and the treasure.

3) Rush the enemies near the throne, kill the boss, and seize.

There are no turtle disincentives, the enemies are fairly easy in this chapter, and the treasures are never really threatened. There's not much else to say about this map. It's low key and pretty boring.

Overall Rating: Below Average

Chapter 2 - 2: Combat Training

This gaiden chapter is fairly interesting. It has a couple of neat side objectives that spice things up, and it rewards fast gameplay. Those interesting side objectives are:

1) There's an enemy that drops a rare Repair Stone. Instead of having Hammerene staves, this game has repair stones which will replenish weapon uses. There are roughly 2 - 3 of those in the game and this is one of them. That enemy leaves fast so you have to hustle to get it. 

2) There's a second enemy near the top of the map that's carrying arrows over to a ballista. If that enemy succeeds, then the ballista will have actual weapons to fire at the player. For obvious reasons, we want to stop this enemy from delivering those arrows.

Enemy reinforcements will also show up right behind the player, which creates even more incentive to move fast. So yeah, this map knows how to make the player move fast. The one problem that I have with this map is that once you're able to complete the side objectives, the map quickly loses steam. After a couple of turns, you can complete the map at your leisure. Still, I think it's noteworthy for those first few turns.

Overall Rating: Decent 

Chapter 3: The Three Bishops

Chapter 3 gets my vote for being the best designed map in the game. I realize that having that title designated for a map this early into the game implies that the maps in the later part of the game suck. This could be further from the truth. There are a lot of well-designed maps that are fun to play. This map, however, is on another level. 

The main goal of this map is to escort three NPC bishops to a seize point on the opposite side of the map. A map design thread on reddit summed up how the three NPCs act on this map:

A couple of things about the priests:

• You can't control them and they will not wait for you. They will always try to move forward, except if there as enemy in the way or if your units are blocking specific tiles.
• Each priest will take a complete different path. Do you see the white tiles? These are "road" terrain and each priest will follow one of the routes.
• The priests are indeed very fragile. Also, each one must stop at a certain point for special events along the way.
• All 3 carry healing magic and heal your units under some circumstances.

Source: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/3g6uez/berwick_saga_map_design_thread_chapter_3/

So yeah. They will move in 3 different directions, and in order to keep up with them, you have to move pretty fast. 

This map reminds me of Conquest Chapter 17, where you have to protect Saizo, who is an NPC that will continue to move forward. Funnily enough, Berwick Saga came out about 10 years before Fates did, so technically Conquest came up with a similar idea to what Berwick Saga did here. Personally I think this map's execution is better since there's no Dragon Vein to trap these NPCs. You have to move forward, and there's no way to trivialize this aspect of the map.

The central path is near water, where pirates will walk on it and try to swarm the bishop. Each bishop will visit a house halfway through their route. These visits will trigger unavoidable events. One of these events reduces that bishop's HP by 15. If you don't want the bishop to die, you'll have to make sure that his HP is higher than that, which puts even more pressure on the player. Another house is guarded by a stupidly powerful boss named Chaos. The best way to deal with Chaos is to bring Faye, who will talk to Chaos, and a prescripted event will ensue.

The overall effect is that the player has to put a ton of thought and effort behind who goes where, and how they're going to beat the level. The boss also spams a skill called War Cry, which stacks the damage that he deals and his hit rate. Despite being at the seize point, said boss will move out of his spot to attack your units. Those War Cry stat stacks are scary, so be warned.  

In case all of that wasn't enough, this map is chock full of side objectives! There are 4 citizen requests that can net you extra money and items in addition to two different houses that also give you stuff on opposite ends of the map. There's a recruitable character and a mini-boss that shows up behind the player. Killing that mini-boss is tough. Like, he has a knife that gives him an automatic 80 % crit rate. No, I'm not exaggerating or being hyperbolic. It's literally 80 %. He also runs away off the map super fast, so you only have a couple of turns to kill him. That being said, killing this mini-boss results in the player gaining extra money, which makes it worth it. 

Then there are enemies that drop various amounts of money on the top left corner on the map, that act as their own fun side objective. Oh, and the pirate fort also contains treasure for your pirate, Axel, to take.

In conclusion, this map is beautiful! It's tough, it requires huge amounts of planning and forethought, and there's pretty much something for everyone in your army to do. It's only tough during your first playthrough. On subsequent playthroughs, it gets easier as you learn how to handle the obstacles thrown at you. It definitely feels rewarding to both play and beat this level. Easily one of my all-time favorite maps to play from a Fire Emblem inspired game. It's up there with the Manster Arc and escape maps in Thracia 776.

Overall Rating: Excellent!!!

Berwick Saga's Map Design Tally So Far

• Excellent: 4
• Pretty Good: 0
• Decent: 1

• Meh: 1 
• Below Average: 1
• Fail: 0