Fire Emblem Engage’s Intro is So Lovably Cheesy

If you watch anime, you’re used to intros that alternate between being deeply emotional and serious or cheesy and silly as all hell. Sometimes it’s neither of those and is purely running off of good vibes. (Usually this is after the show in question hits a new arc.) Video games don’t always get flashy intros, and it’s a shame that’s the case. Because after watching the intro for Fire Emblem Engage, that kind of cheese is something games could stand to have more of.

Fire Emblem Engage is set to release in about two weeks, and along with impressions of the strategy-RPG, the game’s intro cinematic was released. A lot of the intro’s cheesiness is clearly owed to its song, which sounds like it was made in the 90s and then held in stasis for three decades. It’s so anime that you half expect it to end with an ad for Crunchyroll. The visuals try to hit that same cheese with colorful streaks of light corresponding with the toothpaste-colored protagonist Alear and their companions Alfred, Timerra, Ivy, and Diamant and footage of their in-game models showing off their special abilities. Maybe it’s not as strong an intro as the one for 2019’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but Engage’s opening is fun all its own.

The big selling point of Engage is that Alear and their group can use special rings to summon main characters from previous Fire Emblem entries such as Marth from 1990’s Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light or Byleth from Three Houses. That alone sounds anime as hell (image the hands of the previous heroes lifting up Alear during a key moment!), and hopefully the game is able to match the energy its opening puts off. Games like these tend to be long, so an intro should hopefully get you in the mood to defeat evil empires each time you boot it up.

Fire Emblem Engage releases for the Nintendo Switch on January 20.

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