Trivia / Fire Emblem Engage

• Acting for Two:
  • In English, Greg Chun once again pulls double-duty in voicing Ike and Ephraim, and Wendee Lee for Lyn and Veronica.
  • In Japanese, some voice actors voice minor bosses on top of playable characters: Ikumi Hasegawa plays Citrinne and Mitan, Marie Miyake voices Jade and Abyme, and Takehiro Hasu voices Lindon and Teronda, for example.
  • The Four Winds are voiced by the same people as their Hounds counterparts, but rather differently. Gregory only sounds like Griss when given a lethal or very-serious wound, for instance, and not in any captioned lines. Madeline only sounds like Marni when flustered. Zelestia only sounds like Zephia while annoyed. Mauvier has the least difference, essentially sounding (and looking) like his alternate self but with a ton more stress.
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: Voice actors from California and Texas were used for the English dub.
• Content Leak:
  • Months before the game was revealed, there was hints that another Fire Emblem game was completed and ready to release, and that a major part of the game involved summoning characters from previous titles. When discussion of the rumors were high, a couple people leaked photos of the Chinese build of the game, including ones that depicted the female version of Alear and her multicolored hair, as well as Vander and an assortment of other characters. One picture was a support conversation between Vander and Mauvier, which would spoil the latter's defection to the heroes. Though the same leak claimed that it is a collaboration with Koei Tecmo and its division Gust Corporation (The latter being involved with the visuals and graphics), it was debunked as both companies were nowhere to be found in the final game's credits.
  • A few stores in the United Kingdom sold copies of the game a week before the official release date, causing much of the game's content to leak onto the internet.
  • On the game's official release date of January 20, 2023, many members of the English voice cast posted announcements on Twitter about which characters they were voicing. A couple of days prior, most of the English cast was already leaked online, thanks to access of early copies.
  • A datamine released the names of the DLC Emblems (Soren, Hector, Camilla, Chrom, and Veronica), as well as the recruitable characters meant for the Wave 4 DLC (Nel, Nil/Rafal, Zelestia, Gregory, and Madeline).
• Creator's Favorite: Despite being initially mixed about her, the producer, Masahiro Higuchi, considers Yunaka to be one of his favorite characters, mostly for her personality and her way of speech being a trait that was never used on any character up to this point.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • Greg Chun serves as the ADR Director of the English dub version of the game's opening and closing songs, who also voiced both Ike and Ephraim.
  • Patrick Seitz was the ADR Director of the English dub as a whole, and reprised his role as Hector in the Wave 2 DLC.
• Defictionalization: Bond fragments will be sold in the form of themed konpeito candy five months after the game was released.
• Dummied Out:
  • Internal ages exist for every playable character except for Nel, Nil, and a few NPCs, which go unseen during normal gameplay. Interestingly, physical age is listed for Alear and Veyle, but actual age is listed for Zelestia.
  • Lumera, Zephia, Griss, Marni, and Past Alear are the only NPCs who have the unique distinction of having coded growths (reserved in this game only to playable characters), with Zephia, Griss, and Marni even having voice lines meant to be used while under the player's control. The fourth wave of DLC from the expansion pass includes these voice lines and growths (though the characters are Alternate Selves of the Four Hounds rather than the Hounds themselves). On a related note, both Queen Ève and a non-corrupted King Morion have leftover data and voice lines meant to be used in battle that go unused, while Queen Seforia has actual data for stats and base class, but lacks everything else.
  • Ephraim has multiple voice clips meant for battle which go unheard due to Eirika being the only Emblem of their ring to partake in battle.
• Fake Brit: In the English dub, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, an American, uses a British accent for Jean. Another American, Mela Lee, also pulls off this accent with Tiki, who she reprises in this game.
• God Never Said That: Many fans believed that the DLC Emblems were chosen based on their victories in Choose Your Legends, but in truth, according to an interview in Nintendo Dream, it is purely by choice and evaluation, and popularity of the characters was never considered.
• He Also Did: Mika Pikazo, the character designer for this game, has also designed Hakos Baelz, a Virtual Youtuber from hololive's English branch, Kaguya Luna, another Virtual Youtuber, and Sei Shōnagon and Mysterious Ranmaru X for Fate/Grand Order.
• Orphaned Reference: Alear was originally meant to be more cowardly at the start of the game, avoiding fights if they could, before developing and moving past their fears. Though it was dropped as an idea at the suggestion of Nintendo, Alear's Screw This, I'm Outta Here prior to the first proper level of the game was a leftover of this that remained in the game, being used more for comedy instead of character development instead.
• The Other Darrin: Karen Strassman has been Anna's English voice actor since Awakening but since Anna is much younger this time around, Monica Rial provides her voice instead.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Megan Taylor Harvey is usually typecast as Everyone's Baby Sister characters. While Veyle fits that bill perfectly, the same can't be said for Veyle's evil side, which she plays with a tone very different from her typical roles, to the point where it's hard to recognize her as the same person before the reveal.
  • Elizabeth Maxwell normally plays domineering ladies like Albedo or cold-natured characters like Sae and Winter. While Zephia is in-line with the types of characters she plays, her alternate counterpart Zelestia is not, as compared to Zephia, she's a doting Cool Big Sis who isn't one to be shy about her feelings.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Artist and illustrator Mika Pikazo had been a huge fan of the Fire Emblem series prior to working as the lead art and character designer for Engage.
  • Rosado's English voice actor, Brian Timothy Anderson, has been a fan of the series since he was young, and he described joining the series as a dream come true.
• Real-Life Relative: There's quite a few in the English dub:
  • Brandon McInnis (Male Alear) and J. Michael Tatum (Louis) are engaged in real life.
  • Laura Stahl (Female Alear) and Khoi Dao (Kagetsu) are a real life couple.
  • Ray Chase (Roy) and Julia McIlvane (Lumera) are married in real life as well.
  • Married couple Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt reprise their roles from previous Fire Emblem games as Marth and Edelgard, respectively.
  • Katelyn Gault (Jade) and Kyle McCarley (Soren) are married in real life, and due to Gault's character being playable while McCarley's is an Emblem, you can have their characters fight as one.
• Reclusive Artist:
  • James Wade, the English voice actor for Lindon, actually is a real voice actor, albeit without any social media presence. Wade had only two other roles to his name prior to his casting in Engage, the highly obscure Mashed and Epic Clan Battles.
  • Parker Way, the English voice actor for Amber, is not known to use any form of social media, was never seen to the public eye, and also never interviewed in any way, shape, or form. Beyond this and providing additional voices for another game, Street Fighter 6, very little is known about him or his personal life. It is also widely believed that his name is simply an alias, but it has yet to be confirmed.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • In one of Three Houses' developer interviews, it was mentioned there were plans to have Edelgard interfere with the Divine Pulse mechanic when fought as an enemy due to serving as Byleth's antagonistic counterpart outside of her route due to sharing the same Crest, but the idea was scrapped. In Engage, this was revisited in Chapter 11, as Veyle, whose background, personal skill, and class parallel Alear, disables the use of the Dragonic Time Crystal during most of the map's progression.
  • Unused leftover text found in Three Houses' datamine revealed it was at one point considered to have meals made through cooking become consumable items usable in battle. While cut from the final game in Three Houses, Engage introduced the feature properly, though it's only available as long the created meal gets a high enough rank.
  • Dataminers found code for the Cindered Shadows DLC that had unique builds for every student in Three Houses that seemed to suggest you would be able to pick and choose who you wanted to use, but it was scrapped in the final build and you were limited to six specific characters apart from Byleth and the Ashen Wolves. In the Fell Xenologue, you are capable of bringing in any unit you so desire, assuming you have them, and they all have custom builds unique to the chapters and the progression of the plot.
• Role Reprise: In both English and Japanese, the Emblems are all voiced by their respective voice actors from Fire Emblem titles as of the 2010s, namely Heroes. This includes characters that were Suddenly Voiced in the aforementioned game, such as Sigurd, Leif, Hector^note Kosuke Toriumi, his Japanese voice actor, had already previously reprised his role in a CD drama before, making Engage the second time Toriumi voiced him outside of Heroes., Eirika, and Ephraim, who are voiced for the first time outside of Heroes. In addition, Saori Seto also returns as the Japanese voice of Anna.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Mixed with Schedule Slip. According to April 2023 Nintendo DREAM's issue, Engage started development around the same time Fire Emblem: Three Houses did, and was planned to come out sometime in 2020 to celebrate Fire Emblem's 30th anniversary. Despite this, the COVID-19 Pandemic ended up delaying its development considerably and forced the developers to scrap those plans. Furthermore, both the Aussie Classification Board and the USK in Germany reveal the game wrapped up development sometime around 2021, and it wouldn't be until late 2022 that it would be officially revealed and given a proper release date. Presumably, the reason it released in early 2023 can be attributed to a desire to avoid clashing with Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes that same year, as well as Xenoblade Chronicles 3, another JRPG published by Nintendo as a Nintendo Switch exclusive and whose fanbase overlaps with that of Fire Emblem.
• Throw It In!: According to Micah Solusod, Alcryst's English voice actor, Alcryst's low-energy "Awoo" from his and Pandreo's C-support was not part of the script, and was improvised on the spot, much to the amusement of the directors. He also says that he had no idea that they kept his take until the final game was released.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: It's commonly stated that Female Alear has one extra point of base Speed over her male counterpart. This isn't true, and is easy to check by starting a new game with each gender: both have 7 base Speed.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Nintendo's Developer Interview "Ask the Developer Vol. 8" reveals a few details that changed during Engage's development:
    • Alear was initially far more unheroic and cowardly early on compared to the final game. It's reported this was so overdone that Nintendo suggested to tone it down for fear of making Alear too unlikable with players.
    • Very early concept art of Male Alear◊ gives him a design that looks almost drastically different from the one used for him in the final game, with the most notable differences being his hair being black and white with a braid on the left, the color black being more present on his outfit, and his cape having a less practical design.
    • Timerra and Fogado's hair colors were different early on, with Timerra's being yellow and Fogado's bright green.
  • Nintendo DREAM's developer interview on the game also shed some light on some of its changes:
    • As mentioned previously, the game was originally conceived as a Milestone Celebration title intended to release in 2020 to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary.
    • Engage's CERO rating was originally C (from ages 15 and up), but was later lowered to B (ages 12 and up) so the game could target a younger demographic.
  • According to the afterword of the Manga adaptation's first volume, Sommie would've been a cat before the developers came up with its name, thus resulting in the vaguely mammal-like critter it is in the final game.
• Word of God: An interview with the developers clarifies certain plot points about the Fell Xenologue, including why Fell Dragons tend to lose their twin siblings, how Alternate Elyos became a dead world, and why the Four Winds were spared from becoming Corrupted.
• You Look Familiar: Several of the Japanese and English voice actors have appeared in some Fire Emblem-related media before appearing in Engage, many of whom also made their franchise debut with Heroes.

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