Mothergamer Plays Fire Emblem Engage

 I love the Fire Emblem games and have fond memories of playing the classic ones. I had never played Three Houses or Engage and many friends thought I would like both, but suggested Engage for a fun gameplay with story. I picked up Engage along with the DLC for it and was ready to begin my adventure. I was pleasantly surprised that I could play the main character as male or female. The default name is Alear, but you can change the name if you wish. I also liked that I was able to adjust the game settings with the volume of music and sound effects and adjust the sizing of the subtitles. Another thing that pleased me was that I could have the game set to casual and I could turn permanent death off. That was one thing I never really enjoyed in the previous Fire Emblem games, that if you lost a character on the tactics map they were gone forever. Engage allows you to turn that off so that they can join you in the next battle. 

Alear is ready to fight.

I was curious about the land of Elyos and its five regions that each had an Emblem ring. With the DLC I also got Emblem bracelets. I was intrigued by the fact that Alear is a dragon who was asleep for a thousand years and didn't remember anything. That added a bit of mystery to who she was before and how she got to be there which does get revealed in the story over time. The game does give a solid tutorial on how to summon the Emblem they're equipped with while also going over the tactics and strategy mechanics. I was excited to see the Emblems were heroes from past Fire Emblem games. I was really happy to see Hector and Lynn who are favorites of mine. 

Learning how to summon and how to battle. 

I learned very quickly which Emblems worked better with various characters. Engage does let you play around with it and you can swap between characters. For example, Lynn worked amazingly well with my favorite archer Alcryst while Tiki was a great fit with Alear. The battles are fun and the Engage actions are beautifully done with fantastic artwork and animated scenes. Level grinding wasn't really a chore because I was having so much fun. The overhead map has you running along paths to the highlighted spots for skirmishes and story battles. It's fairly easy to navigate and very pretty. 

Running on the map. 

The story itself is quite good. There's a lot of interesting characters that support Alear and the conversations she had with them revealed new things about them. The villains of the story were great too because they weren't one note and were actually complex with their own ideas about how the world should be and reveals about how they came to be where they were. Story and skirmishes weren't the only thing to do in Engage. You have your own stronghold known as Somniel and here you can rest and spend time with Alear's friends. There's also a variety of minigames like fishing, training exercises, and wyvern riding. You can also adopt animals all over the map ranging from cats to bunnies which you can find on Somniel. 

Fishing time! 

You can play multiplayer via Relay Trials, but I didn't really bother with that too much as I prefer to play story games on my own. I loved every minute of Fire Emblem Engage because of how much fun the battles were, but I also really liked the story meeting new characters and happy to see past memorable characters from previous Fire Emblem games. Overall, Engage does an amazing job of melding story and gameplay together creating a grand adventure. 

What an adventure! 

*Fire Emblem Engage is available on the Nintendo Switch

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life

 I loved Harvest Moon A Wonderful Life when it was released on the Gamecube. The cute animals, puttering around the farm, and of course the romance. This game was different than the others because in this one your character actually aged over time and your child grew up and eventually the circle of life would complete as your character passed away from old age. It very much highlighted the importance of treasuring each day and I loved that. 

I was pretty excited about A Wonderful Life remaster and got it on the Switch. I was really happy to see that there were some updates to the original version and quality of life updates that made the game feel more modern. First was the fact that I could play my farmer as a girl and that they asked for your character's pronouns: He/Him, They/Them, She/Her and that made me smile. I know it's basic, but just that they had them is really nice to see. There were some nice skin tone options and a nice variety of hairstyles to choose from as well as colors. I was able to make my character quite easily.

Creating my character. 

The story starts as these stories do with your character coming to Forgotten Valley to take over your dad's farm with the help of his old friend Takakura. Right away I noticed they made the movement controls so much better and I could jump over fences now. I was thrilled to be there and I was ready to start my farm. You do get to choose a dog and name it and not only can you pet the dog, you can also teach it tricks like jumping. I remembered the big thing about A Wonderful Life was take your time, there's no rush. I was able to have a fairly successful first Spring with lots of turnips. After the farm work was done I could go fishing, forage, or talk to my neighbors. 

Spending time with my cute dog. 

I had managed to save enough money to get my very first cow and because I'm a lover of puns I totally named her Moola. I made sure I ordered some fodder so I could feed her while waiting for the grass I had planted in the pasture to grow. I made sure she got all the hugs and brushed her everyday as well. This is important because it builds up a bond with your animals. Happy animals give the best items like golden milk from happy cows. I was able to get chickens later and the chickens are just built different. Whenever it rained I had to let the cows and sheep in because they don't like it. The chickens however are dinosaurs and they did not give a flying cluck about rain at all and were perfectly happy outside all the time and even fed themselves. As long as I hugged them and talked to them every day, they were content. 

Have you hugged your cow today? 

The seasons are only 10 days long which means I had to be choosy about which crops I planted each season because if they didn't get harvested in time or the season changed, the crops would wither which is not good. I usually chose things I could harvest multiple times like tomatoes and strawberries. This saved me a lot of time and because they grew in several seasons it made things easier. There is of course romance in the game and you have your choice of eight different romances and you can romance them all so there is queer romance. Just a note: You have to get married in the first year. It's better to choose someone and start giving them gifts they like soon otherwise the game will choose for you. Yes, it's true. The game will choose for you if you don't lock down that romance within the first year. I chose Cecilia because she was always sweet to everyone and I genuinely liked chatting with her. She also knew a lot about farming and really seemed to love everything about it. There are festivals throughout the game such as a fireworks festival and a Winter music concert. You can invite your special someone to go with you and have a really cute date. 

Enjoying a music festival with Cecilia and the villagers.

There is cooking in the game and food is important because it helps give you energy when you start to tire out. It's also a great gift for several of the villagers especially if it's a dish they love. The three little nature sprites will help you with this teaching you recipes. You can also find notes in the houses of the villagers with recipes like Lou's recipe for curry. The more you cook the better your skills improve allowing you to cook even better dishes. 

Learning the fruit salad recipe. 

The nice thing about A Wonderful Life is that I could play it in spurts. I could play a few days in game, save, and take a break. There's no hurry at all besides the get married in a year aspect. I could grow better tomatoes and buy better farming tools from Van when he came into town. My favorite was the fully upgraded watering can because that made watering crops so much easier.

Growing some lovely tomatoes.

You can also grow fruit trees on your farm. As soon as I got a bigger field I made both of the smaller fields fruit tree orchards. The nice thing about the trees is once you plant them and water them once, you don't have to water them anymore. They'll grow on their own and you can harvest the fruit in their season. It was a nice relaxing way to earn a bit of money for the farm. I also saved some of the fruit for cooking recipes. 

Growing some fruit trees. 

There are time skips at the end of each year such as with the end of one year it shows that my farmer and Cecilia had a son and then we got to name him. I spend as much time with Rowan as I can and he seems to really love farming especially all the animals. With each time skip everyone gets a little older and Rowan is a little more independent exploring the forest on his own, going fishing, and hanging out with the animals. There's a couple of fun mini games too like the territory board game you can play with twin brothers Charlie and Cole. There's also the archeological dig site which lets you find some treasures you can keep to gift or sell and the ancient artifacts that have value you give to resident archeologist Carter. There's always something to do in A Wonderful Life and it's very much at your own pace. It's a nice chill time and you get to appreciate each day you have with your family and everyone in Forgotten Valley. It really is a wonderful life. 

Spending time with the family. 

*Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is available on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer