I am playing Horizon Zero Dawn and haven’t gotten to the first main event, but it gives me this feeling like if I upgrade all my equipment now it might be for nothing. I know that is not the case, I looked it up, but what are some games that are the worst offenders? One I can think of is Aerith in the original FF7.
You do get them back later on, but the newest Fire Emblem Engage has this rings mechanic where each unit gets a ring that contains the spirit of a warrior from one of the previous Fire Emblem games, powers up your unit, etc.
I really mapped it out on my starting run, only to lose all of the rings in like Chapter 10. I can sort of see why the game would do this because like I said you do get them back, but it’s frustrating when a game just takes your momentum away.
The gameplay effect is that it gives you a very tense and surprisingly difficult fight that really tests you and matches the situation well.
I can see why people would find it annoying (because skill inheritance is painfully slow and some rings have abilities you want on pretty much everyone) but I really liked that they went there. The story justification for how you lose the rings is pretty stupid though, I agree with the other comment (u/Kmann725) on that.
I liked that decision from a tactical perspective. The early rings were broken and losing them makes you realize how you may have been depending on them. It was a solid change up to take them away.
It sucked from a planning perspective. You can’t get the abilities on those rings again until you’re very deep into the game.
The way they went about taking the rings was also really stupid.
And then the way you get them back, along with your time rewind crystal thing, is also stupid. Like… is everyone some ultimate thief? “HAHA I STOLE THIS… WAIT THEY STOLE IT BACK?!”
This is honestly why I never finished Engage
You should give it another try, the moment you get them back is so awesome and you have a lot of new rings too.
Same for me./
The first few chapters after 10 are fairly frustrating, but I honestly think that the second half is where the game shines.
The first set of rings are straightforward. Most of them just give you a special attack. The later rings force you to really understand and exploit the game’s mechanics. They’re harder to use, but it feels far more satisfying when you succeed with them.
Corrin has to be my favourite with how creative you can get with her
As someone who recently got the rings back, I agree. But damn it feels good to have them back and use the reacquired emblems/rings to get more skills for the characters.
I immediately lost my will to keep playing when I realized I wasn’t getting them back after chapter 11.
Sort of see? It’s fantastic. It gives you the opportunity to learn the 6 new ones afterwards in a vacuum and allows you to be fully understand the bad guys new powers since you’ve been using them yourself this whole time.
Especially with how good some of those rings are. Lief in particular is a very helpful way to get gold, and of course Sigurd has his amazing Canto ability.
With all do respect, I don’t think many people would agree with you on this one.
Why? Engage Skill nets you 1,000 gold, Adaptable helps you get out of potentially screwing yourself by equipping a certain weapon (not guaranteed of course, but helpful), the Knife skills make him great for Yunaka in particular, has vantage, and can teach a lot of weapon proficiencies. Not the best actual combat unit, but super utilitarian, especially with the gold thing.
Not a bad emblem, just the weakest relative to the other extremely powerful emblems.
It’s only use is getting Anna to max Luck and converting her to Thief for easier money farming. Which, imo, is really good if you’re doing a slower run or really taking time on hardest difficulty.
In terms of power? Awful lol
Overall I think it’s a good ring as you end up with more rings then you need anyways.
Fair points, I’m just asking that the community consensus is that he’s the worst emblem in the game. I kind of think that, too, but I still think he’s okay.
The actual best early game emblem (other than Sigurd) is Micaiah. Augment increase the age of warp/rewarp/rescue staves from 1 tile to 5, which opens up some crazy strategies. You can even warp the user if they’re in the area of affect!