Image: Nintendo via HGG / Dominic Allain
Dominic loves to completely immerse himself in RPGs, then break them apart by modding and speedrunning them.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Hsu
If you’ve taken the time to explore the Somniel in Fire Emblem Engage, you may have come across the Tower of Trials looming far in the back. Inside are various extra combat scenarios: Tempest Trials, Relay Trials, and Outrealm Trials. Of these, we’ll be breaking down Tempest Trials in Fire Emblem Engage and how they work, since they function extremely differently from any other battle in the game.
What Are Tempest Trials in Fire Emblem Engage?
A feature incorporated from the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes, Tempest Trials pit your army against a gauntlet of three consecutive maps for a shot at unique rewards. Your units retain their HP between maps, and any units lost remain lost for the duration of the trial. If you can beat all three maps under these conditions, you’ll receive resources that you can use to upgrade your Engage Weapons.
Fire Emblem Engage has 6 available maps for Tempest Trials, and there are a few different variants for each area that you’ll fight through. These maps tend to get more difficult as you progress through a trial.
Overall, Tempest Trials serve as a nice distraction from the main story, or as a way to challenge yourself during the post-game. Their rewards are fairly underwhelming, though.
How to Access Tempest Trials in Fire Emblem Engage
You’ll be able to access Tempest Trials from the Tower of Trials, located in the rear of the Somnium. They will only be available to you after you complete Chapter 11. Unlike Relay or Outrealm Trials, you won’t need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to be able to play Tempest Trials.
Unlocking Tempest Trial Maps
At first, you’ll have a small selection of maps to choose from for a Tempest Trial. As you progress through the story, you’ll unlock a couple more to play on. Here’s when you unlock each new map:
- Verdant Plain: Complete Chapter 11
- Floral Field: Complete Chapter 11
- Mountain Peak: Complete Chapter 11
- Winter Forest: Complete Chapter 11
- Desert Dunes: Complete Chapter 13
- Vicious Volcano: Complete Chapter 26
You’ll also only be able to play on difficulties 41-50 after completing Chapter 26.
Tempest Trial Difficulty
After selecting a map, you’ll have the option to select a difficulty level from 1-40. This range expands to 1-50 after completing Chapter 26. The difficulty level of Tempest Trials is independent from the difficulty you chose for the rest of Fire Emblem Engage. Despite this, a few aspects related to Tempest Trials are altered if you’re playing on Maddening mode.
The game will give a recommended difficulty level, based on the average level of a number of your strongest units. It’s not necessary to play at this difficulty, but XP rewards decrease the further below the recommendation you play.
Maddening Mode Changes
If you’re playing on the Maddening difficulty of Fire Emblem Engage, you’ll find that rewards from Tempest Trials are reduced until the post-game. You’ll gain no XP no matter what difficulty level you play at.
On Normal and Hard, playing a Tempest Trial will reset the Somniel. Gathering points will reset, rewards can be acquired from activities again, and the Arena will be open for training. This doesn’t occur on Maddening, so Tempest Trials can’t be used to farm animal products or XP from the Arena.
What’s especially frustrating that it will use up your buffs from cooking and Strength Training without allowing you to reset them.
Effects of Difficulty Level
The most obvious effect will be that enemy levels match the difficulty number chosen. Starting from difficulty 21, enemies will become stronger promoted classes. Bosses are always five levels higher than other enemies, and so can become promoted classes starting at difficulty 16.
Another effect of the difficulty is limiting your usage of the Draconic Time Crystal to rewind turns. From difficulties 1-20, you have unlimited charges of the Time Crystal, similar to Normal difficulty. Starting from difficulty 21, you’re limited to 10 uses of the Time Crystal per map, as it is in Hard and Maddening difficulties.
Finally, enemies will match those from Maddening difficulty starting from difficulty 41. Their AI is altered to ignore units that they have a 0% hit rate against or deal 0 damage to. Some enemies will also receive exclusive skills based on their class, so you’ll need to watch out for those.
This difficulty level also determines what rewards you can obtain for completing the trial. More details are available below, but generally, higher difficulties will net you better rewards.
Permadeath and Resources During Tempest Trials
You may be wondering whether your units can permanently die during a Tempest Trial, or whether you should try to conserve item uses. The answer is no to both, as anything that happens during a Tempest Trial is not permanent.
Unit death and item use only persists between maps of the current trial. After it’s over, everything is restored to its original condition. Unfortunately, this means that you can’t gain SP, supports or bond points, nor any XP outside of the end rewards.
Tempest Trial Rewards in Fire Emblem Engage
After completing a Tempest Trial, you’ll obtain stat crystals and a small amount of XP per map a unit has participated in. You can then use these crystals in the Ring Chamber to upgrade your Engage Weapons. The XP reward and amount of crystals received depends on the difficulty.
Experience Gain
The XP reward is based on the difficulty you choose relative to the trial’s recommended difficulty. Fighting at this difficulty or higher will give units 10, 30, or 50 XP depending on how many maps they participated in. These numbers decrease by 1, 3, and 5 for each difficulty below the recommended level, ending at 0 XP for 10 or more difficulty levels below.
Stat Crystals
While every map can reward every crystal, each map provides a greater amount of a certain type of crystal. Each map also has its own Bane book to acquire. These are the main rewards you can obtain on each map:
- Verdant Plain: Def Crystal, Dragon Bane
- Floral Field: Dex Crystal, Rider Bane
- Mountain Peak: Mt Crystal, Armor Bane
- Winter Forest: Res Crystal, Flier Bane
- Desert Dunes: Spd Crystal, Corrupted Bane
- Vicious Volcano: Crit Crystal, All previous Bane books
Special Books
Starting from difficulty 41, you’ll have a very low chance to obtain a Bane book after completing the trial. Bane Books allow you to add effective damage to your Emblem weapons. For example, adding an Armor Bane book to Marth’s Falchion would make it effective against armored units.
You’ll also obtain SP books at difficulties 41-50, starting with 1 Novice Book and 2 Adept Books at difficulty 41. Each increase in difficulty awards you one additional Novice Book. SP Books give large chunks of SP to units that use them.
Tempest Trial Strategies for Fire Emblem Engage
Here are some tips, tricks, and strategies to actually beat the Tempest Trials in Fire Emblem Engage.
Preparing for Tempest Trials
Strategies for Tempest Trials start at unit selection. XP rewards are meager, and enemies are deadly, so it’s best to deploy your strongest units over anyone that needs training. Notably, you’re not required to bring Alear to any of the three maps. Plus, if you do, you aren’t given an automatic game over if they die. If you have any units that exceed Alear’s combat capability, you should likely bring them instead of Alear.
Enemy stat scaling skyrockets at difficulties 21 and 41, due to enemies promoting and beginning to cap their stats respectively. You’ll usually find enemies with offenses and defenses much higher than those found in story maps. If you’re taking on these difficulties as soon as they become available, your army will struggle against these tough opponents.
Since deaths and item usage reset after a trial, you’ll have to play quite differently. You should take full advantage of rare or expensive staves like Warp, Nodus, or Freeze. If absolutely necessary, it may even be worthwhile to sacrifice units to ensure you can complete a map. Since you’re only given 8 deployment slots per map, you likely have some strong units waiting on the bench to replace them anyway.
You’ll also need to make sure your builds are in top shape before starting high difficulties. Make sure your units have strong weapons and skills that complement their role or are generally good to have. Try to stack Speed and other Avoid-boosting skills on anyone without good bulk. If you haven’t, try to get support ranks up as well for the stat boosts they provide in battle.
Strategies During Battle
If you’re tackling a difficulty that matches or exceeds the recommended level, it’s better to take maps slow to ensure your army isn’t swarmed. Keep your army together to take advantage of supports and use bulky units or Chain Guard to attract enemies. There are massive amounts of enemies on each map, but they tend to only attack in small groups once you enter their range. Try not to pull too many at once.
The AI will still make the mistake of attacking your units even if it’s impossible to harm them, even on Maddening difficulty. Because of this, strategies such as placing a Thief in heavy terrain can work in your favor. Using an extremely bulky General to tank attacks can also work, but both will struggle to defeat enemies alone.
As your units grow to match or exceed the enemies, or if you’re playing on a lower difficulty, you can afford to play maps much more aggressively. Make use of your Emblem Rings as much as you can, but be aware that there are no Emblem Energy pools to quickly refill your Engage Meter. If you use all the resources available to you, clearing high level Tempest Trials shouldn’t be too much of a pain.
Join the High Ground!
For a feature that’s relatively hidden away, Tempest Trials in Fire Emblem Engage have a lot going on under the hood. Have you given Tempest Trials a shot? Maybe you don’t find them worthwhile, or maybe you’re the type to auto-battle through difficulty 50.
Either way, let us know what you think in the comments below. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more Fire Emblem Engage guides and other gaming content.
Happy gaming!
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