Fire Emblem Engage may be Lighter and Softer than much of the series, especially Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but some of the hilarity is unintentional.
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General
- The summoning cutscenes tend to get this reaction due to the fact that the Emblems (Except Chrom) start out by having their arms spread wide like common depictions of Jesus Christ before pulling off another pose, which looks a bit silly for something that's supposed to be epic. This especially is notable with Sigurd, who does the exact same pose, this time glued to his horse.
- Every time a character mentions or addresses the princess of Firene, they over-pronounce the ‘é’ in Céline—making it sound like they’re talking about saltwater (saline) or "sailing".
- Chain Attacks can cause unintentional hilarity during major boss fights, especially if a character gets dramatic special dialogue with the boss, only for an unrelated character to jump in with a Kill Steal as they finish speaking (especially if it's one of the less serious characters like Anna). Corrupted King Morion in Chapter 10 is a frequent victim of this, as is Corrupted King Hyacinth in Chapter 17
.Hortensia: I'm sad we didn't have more time together. I love you.
Choops: GYAAAAH!
Hortensia: Soon, this will all be over, OK? Soon, you'll be able to rest.
Choops: She's grown up a little bit. She grew up a little bit. (smiles approvingly)
(battle begins)
Anna: FIRST ONE'S FREE! (shoots Hyacinth for 6 damage, finishing him off)
Choops (starts to laugh)
Hyacinth: I CANNOT ACCE- - In Chapter 10, Hyacinth will use Lyn's emblems to summon 1 HP clones of himself with the Mani Katti. It's already fairly scary since they can really hurt you at this point in the game (Especially on higher difficulty modes!) but what makes it funny is that they all have Hyacinth's death quotes. Meaning that you will hear "I CANNOT ACCEPT... THIS!" being played over and OVER again every time you knock out a 1 HP Clone.
- A character may give a line expressing sorrow over having to kill an opponent, even if they've only emptied one of a boss's Multiple Life Bars, and the boss isn't dead yet, not to mention if the boss ends up retreating after their defeat. Similarly, characters might remark on how many people they've killed after training battles, in which no one is supposed to die.
- One of the death animations that has the character fall face flat into the ground is just laughably cartoonish, to the point that seeing a character die with this animation while saying a sad death quote (especially with Alear) accidentally loses the emotional impact it has. Doubly so if they have an Emblem and they do the exact same animation together. In sync. The death animation for fliers shares a similar problem - they fall off their mounts and onto the ground in an absurdly cartoonish fashion. Their body isn’t even seen as their death quote plays! The hilarity of the death animations even extend into Emblem Sigurd getting launched out of his horse in the most overdramatic way possible.
- Mauvier's Critical Hit quotes as an enemy are exactly the same as the ones he has while playable, which all blatantly reference him being The Atoner. It's extremely jarring to see him get an unlucky One-Hit Kill on one of your allies and yell "This is my redemption!", while still serving the Four Hounds.
- The series continuing to use Hello, [Insert Name Here] for the main protagonist even with full voice-acting already caused problems in Three Houses, but it gets worse here for a couple of reasons. First, "Professor" from Three Houses is far less clunky than Divine One or Divine Dragon. Second, whereas Byleth was The Voiceless, here Alear is fully voiced and has to awkwardly introduce themselves with their full title rather than just their name many times over the course of the game. Additionally, any time a character does refer to the protagonist with their actual name, the voice acting just skips it (while it's often at the beginning or end of a sentence, making the omission less noticeable, Veyle once simply calls Alear's name prior to Chapter 22, resulting in a dialogue box with no voice clips), which can take away from the impact of using the more personal form of address. Some fans wish the series would do away with Hello, [Insert Name Here] altogether, or at least have those players who opt to use the canon name get to hear the protagonist's name voiced rather than just skipped.
- If a unit dies in combat, those close to them- siblings, lieges or retainers- may mourn their loss in post-battle dialogue. It's genuinely sad, but not only is there no voice acting, but the Voice Grunting that plays with the line may be a simple sigh or gasp, making the characters sound annoyed or frustrated rather than overwhelmed with grief.
- Sometimes, Byleth may lose in Emblem training and say "Not setting a good example" and the unit may say "Yes!" as if to agree with him.
Main Story
- The death of Queen Lumera. Even ignoring the fact that she dies less than an hour into the game, the sheer amount of wailing and gnashing over her is overwrought enough that it can become accidentally comedic. In fact, for some, this is a recurring problem with character death scenes in this game, since characters who die in cutscenes often get a long, drawn-out and dramatic Final Speech (regardless of whether or not there are healers nearby).
- Despite chapters 10 and 11 being a huge Wham Episode for the game, there are some moments that are quite hard to take seriously.
- Many people found the scene in which Marth turns red once he is under the control of the enemy at the end of Chapter 10 to be hilarious, even though it's meant to be a shocking moment, as it felt more like Marth transitioned into his edgelord phase than getting corrupted. In fact, Emblems turning red whenever they get corrupted as a whole is a concept that is difficult to take seriously for the same reason. Those who played the older Fire Emblem games can also be reminded and amused how Emblems turning red is reminiscent on how units would change color when switching sides in older games.
- At the start of Chapter 11, we see Alear and their group escape from the Cathedral after their rings were stolen, but for some reason, because it plays on the map itself, they run at such a very fast pace that it makes the group look like a bunch of ants fleeing from a hole.
- For how dramatic the events of these chapters are the reason for why they happen are among the most ridiculous in the entire series: After Sombron and Veyle reveal themselves with their intent to steal the rings, Alear and all their allies turn their backs to look at the arriving Four Hounds and after their introductions try to Engage only to see that the Emblem Rings and the Time Crystal have been stolen by Veyle because as she claims "took them during your little chat". Apparently despite there being around 9 people on Alear side (even if the previous cutscene showed more people being there) no one bothered to keep an eye on Veyle and the Giant Evil Serpent/Dragon who already declared his desire to take the Emblem Rings and moments ago ate a person. Making the entire group look like morons who lack common sense in a dangerous situation.
- Chapter 14 begins with Hortensia holding Seforia hostage. However, this scene becomes quite hilarious for several reasons:
- For one, Hortensia is a 14 year old girl. Seforia is literally old enough to have two adult children. And Hortensia is somehow intimidated enough to not try and overpower Hortensia. While this can be justified in that Seforia is unarmed (and Hortensia is already experienced in fighting), it's still funny.
- Two, it's rendered via in-engine graphics and not a "cutscene" (So the characters are more limited in their animation). Meaning that all Hortensia is doing is... standing in front of Seforia - and not even directly in front of her like a Human Shield.
- Three, Hortensia isn't even holding onto Seforia. It makes one wonder just what Hortensia is really doing to make everyone so paralysed by the choice Hortensia is giving. Past Fire Emblem games got past this with more limited animation capabilities - so this just comes off as the characters once again being stupid.
- At the start of Chapter 17, when Alear explains to Veyle that the whole reason they and their army is even in Florran is because they followed her army there (the same army currently attacking it, they also point out), Female Alear sounds appropriately angry and seething in light of Veyle's betrayal back in Chapter 11 and all the crimes she's committed since then. Male Alear, however, sounds more annoyed, exasperated and even a little snarky rather than angry when saying "Why do you think we're here? We saw Elusia's army coming. Your army. The one that's burning Florra to the ground." as if he's a frustrated teacher trying to lecture a student about a subject they should already know about, with the latter two sentences driving the point home in a condescending manner.
- Some players have had this reaction to the plot developments between chapters 21 and 22. Like Lumera's death above, the scenes in question are so absurdly over the top and over-acted, perhaps even tonally jarring compared to how lighthearted the game was before and afterward, that it accidentally loses weight and becomes hard to take seriously. Not to mention how unlikely it was that Alear would stay dead when there's still five chapters left.
- The whole sequence with the Emblems reviving Alear into the 13th Emblem, which was supposed to be epic, is not only ridiculous and cheesy, but also baffling, because Alear was only dead again for 5 seconds, which makes their second revival so abrupt. The fact that they're also called the game's titular Fire Emblem makes even more jarring as it's the only Emblem in the game that doesn't follow the Theme Naming of all others.
- Upon defeating Sombron in the final chapter and the screen fades to white, the "Connecting..." infobox may pop up before the next scene plays, if you're playing the game in Connected mode. It can look rather silly when a random unrelated infobox appears right after you defeat the final boss.
- The constant use of New Powers as the Plot Demands becomes over-the-top as the game wears on, starting with the rather silly lore that the Emblems can conveniently only use their world-altering united power once every millennium, and ending with the reveal that the Emblems have a secret miracle power to bring someone back to life and make them an Emblem... And conveniently, it drains all of their future power so that they can never use their united power again in the future.
Fell Xenologue
The Fell Xenologue DLC takes on a more serious tone and is Darker and Edgier than the main story, but it still has moments that fall into this:
- The Xenologue features evil counterparts of the royals, whose personalities drastically contrast their good selves... and then there's the evil version of Céline, whose personality is barely any different from her normal counterpart (when it comes to defending her kingdom/people) other than the fact that she's less gentle overall.
- Many of the Fell royals are written reasonably well, inverting their personality and sibling dynamics in realistic ways: Alcryst is still secretly insecure and guilt-ridden but is domineering and abrasive to a timid and unconfident Diamant, Ivy is cold and cruel to a shy and depressed Hortensia, Céline urges Alfred to be more bloodthirsty and violent. And then there's Timerra, whose biggest change from her normal counterpart is that she hates singing and is a vegetarian, which shocks her retainers, far cry from the serious tone of the rest of the Xenologue to the point of parody, and unintentionally comical on the part of the writers. This also extends to most of the Solm retainers; if they are chosen to fight them, alternate Fogado will claim Bunet was bad at cooking and alternate Timerra will claim Panette was afraid of graveyards and Merrin disliked animals. Many have commented that it looks like the writers got lazier when it came time to conceptualize the Fell versions of the Solm characters, and defaulted to just taking the most notable personality trait they had, and reversing it.
- The Mauvier of the alternate Elyos being the exact same person as the normal Mauvier in terms of looks accidentally becomes hilarious, since the alternate Mauvier is grouped with Good Counterparts of the Four Hounds, which, unlike him, all have alterations to their designs and personalities. It comes off as if he has multiple versions of him in every alternate universe of Elyos, all of which look the same.
- If Diamant fights Alternate Alcryst, who has belittled Alternate Diamant in a previous scene and believes Diamant is trying to assassinate him (mistaking him for Alternate Diamant), then Diamant says, with a mix of Captain Obvious and Understatement: "I get the impression our relationship is much less cordial in this world." It doesn't help that, due to a typo, "Or are you trying to get rid of me in the confusion of battle" ends with a period, making it seem like a statement rather than a question.
