Fire Emblem: Three Houses

[Nester the Lark]

The English voice actor for Seteth has posted some silly in-character messages on Twitter:

As for the game itself, I'm still in the school part. Chapter 7, I think? (I'm surprised I started playing it nearly a week before YL, but I'm mad he got Rune Factory 4 Special before me. )

I'm enjoying it, but it feels a lot different from the other FE games I've played. I'm used to most of the game happening on the battlefield, rather than having a separate section for character interactions and such. Also, in the past, I think I've said that Fire Emblem could feel too rigid. Well, sometimes, Three Houses feels like it's going too far in the opposite direction. The customization is kinda cool, I guess, but there's also a lot of extra fluff. Exploring the monastery can take an excessively long time. (I know you can fast travel, but then you can miss the lost items that are scattered around.) I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

[nocturnal YL]

Since I'm still very early in (at Chapter 4), I don't feel like talking too much about it either. This game feels both a lot like Fire Emblem (the overall feel, the general gameplay, and lessons are just a very glorified version of the increasingly versatile class and weapon level system) and not. And I still feel strange to see that of all things, this game reminds me the most of Echoes (the magic system, bosses are found on similar spots, and at least bows aren't overpowered).

It's probably the darkest Fire Emblem I've seen. The story itself isn't that dark (Jugdral is a thing), but since everything is acted out with full voice and motion, it certainly is more impactful. Also, political problems that can't simply be talked out of… ouch. Kind of makes me miss those unrealistic wars fought in Magvall and Tellius.

I can't tell what should my goals be. Obviously raising Byleth's stats and support levels are very important (for scouting students), but the lack of any solid indicators of what exactly is needed worries me. I'd say this is my biggest complaint up to this point.

The monastery feels like it's going to feel boring very soon. It only refreshes once per month, but frequent visits will help raising support levels with students in other classes and raises Byleth's action points. And I don't suppose boss abuse to raise weapon levels is a good idea here. I play on Hard / Classic (because Lunatic isn't available from the get-go), so 0-cost weekend battles aren't an option.

Oh, and the Blue Lions feel like a standard Fire Emblem team in terms of unit type distribution. We get a swordsman, a few lancers who can potentially become cavaliers or fliers, a mage, a healer, an archer and an axe fighter/armour knight mix. That's a pretty standard starting team.

Don't know if I'll be starting Rune Factory soon, but I expect to do so after my Three Houses run (haven't decided if I want to do it after one or all paths), which is probably before its western release.

[Nester the Lark]

It occurred to me that Three Houses feels a little more like Shining Force, with the traditional RPG stuff between battles, and the ability to grind by retreating from battles and restarting them without losing experience (although I have not needed to do that yet).

I like my ragtag team of Golden Deer, even if I'm not quite sure what to do with all of them. Lorenz is my least favorite and one my most under-developed. I'm making him a cavalier, even though he seems to have some affinity for dark magic. (I already have Lysithea, so why do I need another dark mage?) I have not recruited anyone from other houses yet, but I'm leaning towards a couple.

And I'm thinking of eventually hooking up with Marianne just for a dumb "Professor and Mary Ann" joke that only I will think is funny.

Also, count me as a fan of the gatekeeper. I now want him to be a recurring character like Anna.

[nocturnal YL]

Just finished Chapter 4. Nothing to report in terms of gameplay, but I'd point out that after Awakening and Fates, we're finally getting some good (new) story. I'm not a fan of dark stuff*, but I find myself very engaged in the story thus far. It makes me feel uneasy at the centre of a political storm, it makes me hate Rhea for her hard stance against anti-church offenders (while still working for her), which makes it a good story. I think I can actually forgive the lack of a "kill no one" option, because the story actually makes more sense as is.

Can't wait to see the rest of the story unfolding.

*I know this is a series about war, but we also had lighter stories like The Sacred Stones and Binding Blade.

[Nester the Lark]

Nadia Oxford at US Gamer pointed out an interesting little detail: the illustrations between chapters subtly tell a story about a deer, a hunter, and woodsman. I love the idea of "background narratives" like this.

As for me, I'm a little stop and go, but I'm on chapter 9. I've recruited Catherine and Shamir, and I've been doing some side battles. Also, I've come to the realization that I'm really bad at tea parties.

[Leon]

I find the tea parties can go from extremely easy, to ridiculously difficult. I don't remember who it was, but I failed immediately on the first question with them.

As for me, I'm at the War Phase, and I figure I must be fairly close to the end game at this point. I honestly think Three Houses does get darker than Jugdral, some of the things that happen are quite tragic, and I'm with the Leicester Alliance, which is probably the lightest of the campaigns.

Also Death Knight > Black Knight.

[nocturnal YL]

Serenes Forest has been updated to include the criteria for recruiting other students. I think I'm pretty screwed, being in the last week of Red Wolf Moon (Part 1 Chapter 8 / month 11) and having mostly ranks E (and some E+ and D). I'm in the Blue Lions route, which means I don't need to raise sword and flying levels, but I'm still pretty much done for.

[Leon]

To be honest I found recruiting outside students to be only somewhat useful. If you can get them quickly, they're a beast, but if you take too long they're just too underpowered to contribute to your team. I didn't manage to nab Ashe until chapter 10 or 11, and at that point he was basically useless compared to the rest of my roster.

[Nester the Lark]

So, I'm only getting near the end of part 1, but I was thinking about how much I enjoy the Golden Deer characters. So much so, in fact, that I don't know how much I would care for replaying the game as the other Houses (especially based on my interactions with the other students).

I did recruit Bernadetta and Ashe, but they seem to fit in pretty well with the Golden Deer anyway. (I also got Dorothea, but that was more just because I already had the right skill levels.)

They're just such a lovable, quirky Breakfast Club-type group of characters, all coming from different backgrounds, but still finding ways to relate to each other. They also remind of those movies/shows about underdog sports teams filled with misfits that learn to work together. I love dynamics like that.

So, I was kinda wondering how you guys felt about your students. I know YL picked Blue Lions. I think Leon picked Golden Deer, also?

Also, awesome fan art of the Golden Deer gang:

[nocturnal YL]

I'm also at the end of Part 1. I have spent… 70 hours thus far? (Not exactly unexpected, considering there are games I spent 400+ hours on.)

I got everyone. I spammed flowers and gifts, spent my time in the monastery raising skill levels and nothing else, and I eventually got everyone to agree to join me.

I also rely very heavily on guides. They do a great job revealing game data without spoilers. (All except the first are Japanese)
Serenes Forest (Recruitment criteria)
h1g (General stuff, particularly dialog choices for raising support points)
HyperWiki (Tea time choices)
Gamerch (General stuff, raising Byleth's skill levels)
BoomAppGames (Gift guide)
AppMedia (Dropped items guide)

Generally, I like the writing of this game thus far. It does a great job showing the characters as storied individuals with different backgrounds and goals, as well as multifacted personalities, getting banded together (or not) sharing parts of their lives. It's very… real-life like. Minus the part where half of them don't look like they're fit for military life.

I obviously use mostly Blue Lions students (plus Flayn), but there are a few from other houses that got my attention, especially Bernadetta both for her slow warm-up for Byleth over the year and her B support conversation. Now that I think of it, there's also Lysithea's B support and Raphael's paralogue. They're, to say the least, less single-trait than a good number of the past Fire Emblem characters.

My least favourite thus far (across all classes) is Caspar, who feels like a stereo typical hot-blooded hero who refuses to give benefit of doubt and sees the world with black-and-white morality. Rhea does this too, but in Caspar's case he doesn't really have a reason to act this way other than impluse.

Oh, and the main characters (house leaders, Rhea, their subordinates) all feel very twisted. I knew something would go wrong as soon as we were told the premise of the story, and I even read some spoiler before, but whoa. Now I both feel sorry for Dimitri having to endure what he did and put on a friendly face for four years, and want to stop him from going berserk. Byleth isn't exactly sane either, though…

Side note, this game got rated B (12+) for (cutscene, non-animated) blood while FE Fates, FE Warriors and FE Echoes (Valentia Complete only) got rated C (15+) for Camilla. CERO has some serious priority issue.

Among the Blue Lions, personality-wise I like Annette the best. Mercedes and Ashe also have agreeable personality, while everyone else have issues one way or another. These remaining five also know each other prior to entering Garreg-Mach, and are affected to various degree by the Tragedy of Duscur, taking a tool on their personalities.

Felix was someone I thought I would hate, but it turned out he wasn't that harsh as his outward demeanour suggests. Sylvain is more of a comic relief thus far, even when he is serious. I don't like Ingrid for her lack of delicacy, but I don't dislike her, either. Dedue is a nice person overall, as long as you don't do anything against Dimitri or insult him. That's just blind loyalty.

It's really hard to say what do I think about these characters, but that's also exactly what makes the character building and story good. It's also a good mix of personalities (thus far), from straightward to tragic to being cunning themselves.

In terms of them as units, I originally used Felix, Annette, Mercedes and Dedue the most, but eventually everyone got good enough and I didn't run into the classic FE problem of having someone I want to train but can't due to them lagging too much behind to be salvageable. It helps that almost every mission require around 10 units to be deployed, just enough for one class (including Flayn). Mercedes remains the most useful because of Physic and Fortify, and Speed remains the most important stat, making Felix (and Annette to some extent) useful. Glad to see some aspects of Fire Emblem remains intact.

I have a lot to complain regarding gameplay, though. The recritment criteria aren't very explicit (not the usual "go to battlefield, see someone, talk with main character" route), but the actual battles are very easy (on Hard, which is the highest available right now). So basically, this is a Fire Emblem game that challenges players on things not directly related to Fire Emblem gameplay. It's also essentially Weapon Level: The Game, with those determining both reclassing and recruitment, and weapon levels and support levels can be raised outside of battles (and indeed, the only way to raise some of those is outside battles).

The overall game is excellent so far, but like I said, it sometimes feels like a Fire Emblem-themed SRPG that's not exactly Fire Emblem.

I should move to Part 2 soon and see what further plot twists await me. One thing I can say is that despite everything that's happened to Byleth, Rhea, Edelgard and Dimitri (Claude has next to no presence in this route), I don't regret picking the Blue Lions route. If anything, I'll end up getting the most "complete" collection of playable units.

EDIT — I got to see the beginning of Part 2. And I'm quite shocked.
A bit disappointed to see everyone returns just like that, though. I was hoping to see everyone getting separated for various reason, needing to be recruited like in the older games.

I'm also very impressed to see that the first thing Byleth tried to do after regaining conciousness is to go back to Garreg-Mach. Byleth may be weird, but we're looking at an exceptional teacher who takes the students' well-being very seriously, even long after they're supposed to graduate.

[Nester the Lark]

So, I'm a little confused about something.

Ashe seems to have disappeared from my roster between parts 1 and 2. Everyone else is present, including units recruited from other houses. I'm pretty sure I didn't get him killed in any way (I would've noticed that). What happened? Does it have something to do with the story? Is it a glitch?

I'll be upset if I've lost him permanently.

[nocturnal YL]

The Part 2 recruitment criteria are as followings:

Black Eagles route, Lysithea: Enemy in Chapter 14; do not defeat or defeat with Byleth
Blue Lions route, Lorenz: Enemy reinforcement in the battle of Chapter 16; defeat with Byleth
Golden Deer and Church routes, Ashe: Enemy in Chapter 15; defeat with Byleth to recruit

In addition, on the Blue Lions route, one Blue Lions character is unavailable from this point on, but that is explicitly stated in story. Also, be sure to clear this character's paralogue in Part 1 when playing this route. SPOILER: Click to show This character is Dedue.

[Nester the Lark]

Thank you!

Glad to know he'll be back. I had plans for him.

[Leon]

I also think that if you recruit a character after the class reunion promise is made in part 1, they won't return by default and need to be recruited in battle in part 2.

[nocturnal YL]

I don't think that's the case; I recruited a lot of students in Chapters 11 and 12, and all of them except Lorenz are back.

This is the reference I used; although it's in Japanese.


A note on paired endings: This time, paired endings are determined by A support level except for Byleth. In case of multiple A supports, characters closer to the top of the character list in the Support feature in the Extra menu have priority. For pairs with multi-part A support conversations, only A+ supports will lead to endings, but A+ here will not have priority over A support of other pairs.

To ensure the desired pairings in the ending, do not view (and save) the final support conversations of pairs you do not wish to see endings of.

(Reference)