For some background, I've played through Awakening, all Fates games, 3 Houses and as of writing I am on the final level of Engage.

In general, I prefer tactics games with more varied units, where each unit has very unique functions, strengths and weaknesses (Code Name STEAM is a good example that likely has a decent amount of cross-over with this fandom). Despite units being less varied than I would like, I've always found Fire Emblem games to deliver a quality tactics experience, and are popular enough that I know other people that play them (and being able to talk about the game with others is a huge plus), so I've enjoyed all my my play throughs of Fire Emblem.

Unlike prior titles, I felt Engage delivers on having a varying functions provided by different units. The bonuses and abilities that emblems provide really sets apart units. For me, it felt like the emblems were the units I was commanding and the character holding them were more or less inconsequential husks of stats (game-play "feel" wise, the stats certainly do matter).

It also felt like there was so much room for creativity for how to use the emblems. For example, I realized the power of combining Corrin with covert units that so they constantly can exist in fog, but pairing Corrin with Thunder users for long range Dreadful Aura also seem equally viable. One of my favourites was pairing a General with Celica, to cover the general's poor movement with teleport and allow the general to more effectively use Levin Swords for some magic coverage and range. I should mention here that I play through all the games blind. I'm sure these things have been optimized like crazy and there are "correct choices" if you are playing optimally, but playing through blind there seemed like a lot of viable possibilities.

I like enjoy tactics games giving me a challenge, and forcing me to explore all their mechanics to overcome the challenges they throw at me. For this reason, I was disappointed with the first route of 3 Houses I played. Playing on Hard (the now middle option, maddening was not available at launch), I found clearing levels was very achievable through just basic tactical position, and you could ignore the game's special mechanic of managing weapon durability and Combat Arts. The game wasn't pushing me to engage with this feature, so I didn't, and the game-play felt a bit bland due to it. I got to play other routes on maddening, which I felt significantly improved the game for me, as it did require more engagement with the game's unique systems.

I played Engaged on maddening. Engage managed to create this amazing feeling where it presents some challenge that seems too great, then with the "power of the emblems" (the game's unique mechanics) you are able to succeed. Possibly this just comes from playing previous fire emblem games; seeing a unit with defence higher than any of your units attacks makes me think it will be impossible (as it more or less would be in previous games), but either way its a great feeling. Every battle felt like a viable challenge, packed with interesting decisions as to when to use the emblem abilities and how to set up units to get maximum effectiveness from them.

I have my complaints with Engage; reclassing is poorly communicated and uninteresting, darkness chapters go against the whole point of making tactical decisions (how are you supposed to play tactically if you have no information about your enemy's location?), but overall, I greatly enjoyed and was very impressed with Engage. That is, if we ignore the last 5 chapters.

The variety offered by emblems is of course still present in the last five chapters (though at this point your team is pretty much set, so it starts being more repetitive), but the challenge the game offers you varies greatly. As mentioned before, for most of the game, you are presented with what seems like an insurmountable challenge, then you are surprised by the "the power of the emblems". Near the end of the game, the game shifts to creating difficulty through endless reinforcements, which creates the exact opposite feeling. Now you start the chapter and you think "this looks pretty doable", then you are bombarded with chumps you have to grind through. Past just feeling worse than overcoming what originally felt insurmountable, these levels feel very grindy. Typically, Fire-Emblem doesn't encourage grinding, and I appreciate that, yet level 22 felt like grinding (and you don't even get the usually exp reward of grinding). Level 22 entailed of me constantly using nearly my whole team to address the reinforcements, then slowly picking away at the the actual level with my remaining two units. This went on for more than 5 hours. Needless to say, I did not enjoy this level.

Level 23 and 24 were fine (I actually quite liked level 24), but 25 once again had the issue of Level 22. At this point my patience for this was running low, I caved and looked up guides on the level. This something I very rarely do, as I feel it takes all the reward out of the level, but I just wanted to get through the grind so I could play the end of the game. And what I was met with after level 25 was even worse. (spoilers ahead) I spent 7 hours grinding through endless reinforcements in level 25 until I final defeated all 4 of the dark emblems. When Sombron's shield is finally down, I take out one of his health bars, then the Dark Emblems respawn and the shields are back up. After a moment of reflection I decided to quit. Grinding 20 more hours to finish this game isn't worth my time and I regret the already 15 hours of grinding I put into Level 22, 25 and 26.

I expect a couple of common suggestions/rebuttals, so I'll address those now (and if you have any other suggestions, I am happy to hear them):

I am aware that there are limited dark emblems. It would still likely entail 20 hours of grinding to get through the last 8. Most of those 7 hours for the original 4 was on the last 2, after the reinforcements start spawning and I needed to carefully cross over the "danger area" Sombron covers.

Could I switch to an easier difficulty to complete the level in less time? Of course I could, but that defeats the whole purpose. I want to overcome the challenge of the level. The challenge of the level isn't whats the issue, its the length. I could play on a lower difficulty, but then I wouldn't be overcoming the challenge that I find rewarding. Also, if its not clear from what I already wrote; I'm not playing engage for the story, so simply completing the level at all costs isn't what I am aiming for.

Would it have been quicker if I had optimized my team better or played better (aka "skill issue")? Probably. I'm no stranger to "losing a run" (I got stuck in Conquest after some questionable re classing on my first play of it) and I enjoy that level of difficulty, so I enjoy playing blind at this level of difficulty. Anyways, the problem isn't that this chapter is requiring more skill or better builds, its that its requiring more time.

Engage's final chapters was "the straw that broke the camels back" for me, but I noticed a significant jump in length (and quite often tedium) of Fire Emblem's chapters since 3 Houses. In Awakening/Fates, longer chapters would take around 2 hours to complete. 3 Houses and Engage really up the scale of chapters; more enemies, more reinforcements, and 5 hours for a chapter started seem more normal. I think Divine Pulse/Rewind mechanics are big driving force for this. Before if something went wrong, you had to start the whole chapter, which could make long losing a unit on a longer chapter particularly annoying. But now with rewind, developers see less of an issue of chapters taking many hours to complete.

Understand that I think rewind is good mechanic. It encourages players to go for the "flashy" plays that can feel really rewarding to pull off, rather than more conservative plays when you don't have the crutch of reversing time if things go wrong. I don't think rewind should or will be removed, which makes me think that these "longer and grander" chapters will continue to persist in the series. I imagine some people like these grander chapters, but for me it starts to become too repetitive, especially if that length is coming from endless reinforcements as it primarily did in Engage.

Edit: This post shows the team I am using if that helps put things in perspective: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/1bucr56/is_this_team_significantly_under_powered_for_the/