5 intense challenge runs to attempt in Fire Emblem Engage

Like other games in the franchise, Fire Emblem Engage can be incredibly challenging for many players. However, current releases allow players to avoid permadeath through the Casual setting. There’s no shame in wanting to enjoy or make the game more accessible, but that’s not what everyone wants.

As a strategy game, Fire Emblem Engage can offer further challenges, though, for players willing to put in the work. If you’re looking to take things to the next level, we have some challenges you can tackle while playing through the latest entry in the franchise.

However, many of these work under the Honor System. These cannot be directly configured into your gameplay experience. With that in mind, staying honest and tackling these maddeningly complex Fire Emblem Engage challenges will be up to you.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinions.

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The 4 most exciting challenge runs in Fire Emblem Engage alongside One Unit Playthrough

5) Classic + Hard/Maddening Difficulty

Playing on Classic/Normal is the easiest thing a player can do in Fire Emblem Engage. That’s fine if you want to play the game while still being challenged, but some players take that a step further. Classic means that anytime a character dies, they die for real.

You can add Hard/Maddening difficulty on top of the permadeath system. Enemies will hit harder, play more intelligently, and you have fewer uses of the Time Rewinding system. If you want to go as hard as possible, play on Maddening. Your opponents typically have a level advantage, so you must play slowly and smartly.

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4) Base Classes Only

Let’s step things up a little bit. For this Fire Emblem Engage challenge, you can upgrade your characters via Master Seals upon reaching level 10. However, for this challenge, you won’t be doing that ever. Anytime you recruit a character throughout the run, you cannot use any advanced classes.

As soon as you recruit a character, if they have an Advanced class, change them to a Base class without taking the time to level them up. However, there are exceptions, but that’s up to the player's choice.

Thief and Dancer are special classes and can level beyond the usual limitations of character classes. You can also decide if you can use Secondary Seals to continue to improve those characters, as long as you never venture into the world of Advanced classes in Fire Emblem Engage.

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3) No Emblem Rings Allowed

One of the most potent parts of Fire Emblem Engage is the Emblems themselves. Some created rings are as powerful as the bond rings named after previous protagonists in this series. These rings impart great stat bonuses, passives, and so much more.

So for this challenge, you can’t use them, ever. You have to unequip them if a character starts with one. That means no using Bond Points to forge the generic Bond Rings either. If you want to go beyond this, you can choose not to level up the bond between characters or deny any benefits from the Emblem Rings.

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2) One Unit Playthrough

Can you survive the One Character Challenge in Fire Emblem Engage? (Image via Intelligent Systems)

A popular challenge run for fans of games like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics is the One Character Run/One Unit Playthrough. In this, you only use one character for every battle in the game, one of the most challenging peaks to scale in games like Fire Emblem Engage.

In most cases, this will probably be Alear. Alear is required to be on every map, and she’s the character that is the most potential for success. You can always unequip her, leave her somewhere, and use a different character if you want a further challenge in your runs.

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1) No Healer’s Club

If you don’t have a high avoidance, defense, or HP, it will be a long run in Fire Emblem Engage. It would help if you had healers, or at least healing potions, to get you through the most demanding situations. Not with this challenge run, though! Throughout this run, you are forbidden to use staves, heals, or healer classes.

However, it’s not a complete loss. Those staff-wielding characters can still join you in battle - they can’t be a healer class. This also means you cannot use abilities like Great Sacrifice as a last-resort heal. No potions, no healing staves, classes, or spells.

This is one of the genuinely significant challenges you can engage in. It will get easier later if you spend enough time building up your defenses and avoidance, but that won’t always get you through.

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However, there are other ways to challenge yourself as a Fire Emblem Engage player. You can use Solo-Gender runs, reset battles anytime you lose a unit, only use primary weapons, and much more. Do what feels right and what you’re comfortable with.