Fire Emblem: Three Houses

[nocturnal YL]

I'm at Chapter 19 now. Right now my army is heavily leaning towards magic users and bow users. Just like in Echoes, the added range to ranged weapons outright makes them broken.

I'm using Bernadetta, Lysithea and Marianne in addition tothe Blue Lions students, mostly for story reasons but seriously, Lysithea is broken. Much like evey other FE game, speed is an important stat, and for some reason Lysithea has speed that rivals Felix's. Also helps that she has great magic, skill and resistance, and has a spell that is effective against risers. Lysithea is also very commendable personality-wise. I originally planned to not favour her since preferring magical prodigies is something I've done way too many times in Fire Emblem, but here we go again.

Oh yeah, magic spells. This time, they replenish automatically after each battle at the expense of not being able to assign tomes individually to each unit. Which means that there's no need to worry about using up expensive, low-durability tomes. And of course, this makes them even more broken.

Also, Dedue is an excellent shield who currently has 40 defence. At this point the only "strategy" I need to worry about is whether the enemies are physical or magic-based, and assign the right unit to lure them. They can then be one-shot killed with range magic or bow without even a chance to fight back. Seriously, this game is too easy. When are we getting Lunatic?

The story is starting to get intriguing. Now that I know Lysithea's backstory, and I just realised that Edelgard also has white hair. And looking at spoilers elsewhere just confirmed what I suspected. I was already thinking about doing Edelgard's route next just to see what's the enemy thinking, but now I'm even more curious.

I also noticed that Cornelia

SPOILER: Click to show shares the same trait as Kronya and Solon, having changed personality. Is she also killed and impersonated?

The story really is dark and deep. It reminds me of both Holy War and Blazing Blade (the latter in the sense that you need to dive into the script to get a full picture of what's going on), which is quite refreshing after seeing what Awakening and Fates offered. It also makes me feel sorry for everyone involved and wish to find a way to save them all (since the whole war really is caused by a huge string of misunderstandings and miscommunications, and I can see that at least Dimitri is jumping to conclusions too easily), but I do agree that such a route would make the existing routes seem inferior.

[nocturnal YL]

I'm right before the final battle now, and I decided to read the various A supports of the characters (and then suspend, thus saving the status of having read those supports). A lot of these feel like somewhere between love confessions and not, making them kind of like the GBA-style A supports, but not quite there. And that makes it weird that these A supports aren't mutually exclusive.

Exclusive A supports would have made things less awkward and less confusing (giving how paired endings work this time). I'd even say I wouldn't mind if the 5-conversation limitation returns.

[nocturnal YL]

Finally finished the Blue Lions route. The paired endings are morechaotic than I thought, with a lot of pairs that I got A supports of but didn't plan to see endings of popping up. Oh well.

I spent way too much time on just one playthrough. I'm at 160 hours, which isn't exactly good use of time to not learn much of the story and raise units that will inevitably reset in my next playthrough.

My biggest complaint with this route is that there's almost no information on what the enemies really are. The player is given some hints, but as far as the characters in-game are concerned, they don't know much and aren't really motivated to learn what even are the adversities they're facing. But then again, the main enemy didn't do a good job explaining either. I know this lack of information is intentional, as (1) Dimitri and company have no idea either, and (2) the player is supposed to go though all routes.

The ending is quite unceremonious, as there isn't even any lengthy discussion after the war is over, unlike every other game in the series. I know I won't get a satisfactory ending, but I didn't expect a minimal one. Granted, they talked a lot about the end of the war before it actually ended.

I'm not sure if I want to start another playthrough so soon, but if I do, I'll likely try Edelgard's route. Or maybe play both that and other games, because alternating between peaceful life and killing former friends certainly is fun. I also want to wait for the Lunatic update, since Hard really is too easy.

[Nester the Lark]

Congrats finishing it!

I think I've hit my typical Fire Emblem burnout phase, so I'm taking a short break from it. I can't remember what chapter I was up to. I kinda wish I'd bothered to recruit more characters in the first part, tho, based on what I hear people say about the final chapter. I just took my usual approach of focusing on building up a core team of characters.

[nocturnal YL]

I found that I've been thinking a lot about Edelgard soon after my last playthrough ended, so I decided to start a new run immediately. Actually, I'm already at Chapter 5.

Goals:
- Side with Edelgard
- Pair Edelgard with Lysithea
- If possible, collect all Edelgard and Hubert supports since I don't know if I will bother with the church route (and A supports are locked to Part 2 anyway)

I find myself not using Ferdinand and Caspar, mostly because of their personality. I also found myself using Ashe, Mercedes and Annette again. Seriously, ranged attacks are still broken. And Lysithea's high magic is very useful even at the beginng (I started using her in Part 2 last run).

Playing it after knowing its story feels quite different. There are a lot of "Oh! So this is what happens if I pick a different house" moments. And also a lot of "please don't be so good to me, I'll have to kill you guys later" moments.

Also, Edelgard's supports makes me very interested. If only there's a route that follows Dimitri but Edelgard can somehow manage to show her side of the story…

[Nester the Lark]

Sept 9, 2019 11:18:12 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

And also a lot of "please don't be so good to me, I'll have to kill you guys later" moments.

I'm on a chapter where I have to kill a number of students from other houses, and I'm wondering if this game will be too depressing for me to get through. Especially since it emphasizes the kills with dramatic death screams, and the camera wants to linger on their bodies. It really makes me feel the weight of it.

[Nester the Lark]

The new update is out, and it adds "Maddening" difficulty, which I assume is the equivalent of Lunatic.

Also, male Byleth's English voice actor has finally been changed (after that controversy).

I never got the expansion pass, and I don't plan to at this point. Still, the new costumes aren't all that exciting. There are athletic uniforms for most of the students, and just a pair of glasses for Byleth.

I kind of imagined the costumes might be something cool, like Marth and Lucina outfits for male and female Byleth. Or better yet, Ephraim and Eirika outfits, since Byleth's hair color looks like them anyway.

Full patch notes here.

[nocturnal YL]

Complete silence for a few days, yay. I was still playing, but my tendency to explore everything means my progress is slow.

First off, we get an overview of the rest of the DLC. I'm not sure if I want it; I still need more details first. I don't want to see unnecessary additions ruining an otherwise perfectly fine game.

I'm currently at the beginning of part 2 of my second run. The Crimson Flower routeis just like what others have described: a decent story, but obviously rushed. In just Chapters 12 and 13, we see that there are no animated scenes, with events described with just dialogs and still illustrations. The story also makes it obvious that there are other battles held by more formal armies, and we never get to actually see those happen.

So far, I'm not sure if I like this approach of storytelling. The worldbuilding is excellent, the cryptic hints in the stories makes solving the story a fun exercise, but there are still too many unexplained parts and too many battles not played out. I like stories that tell events more explicitly.

Not sure if I like the approach of having multiple paths either. Fates did it too, and in both cases some people are going to die regardless of the route picked. Hurts even more here, since all the opposing factions are actually pretty decent people, clashing goals and ideals aside. I do appreciate being able to pick a side, though. Throughout the stories of Binding Blade and Radiant Dawn, I actually find myself agreeing with some of the antagonists more.

My mind is starting to drift away from this game, so I expect to take a break after this playthrough.

[Nester the Lark]

Sept 21, 2019 13:50:36 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

Complete silence for a few days, yay. I was still playing, but my tendency to explore everything means my progress is slow.

First off, we get an overview of the rest of the DLC. I'm not sure if I want it; I still need more details first. I don't want to see unnecessary additions ruining an otherwise perfectly fine game.

I was going to post about the DLC, and then I forgot. Now I feel irresponsible.

Maid and butler outfits? Makes sense considering that the school uniform cliché is already the default costume.

I stil haven't finished my first playthrough. My rhythm seems to be to play it a lot one day, then take a couple of days off. I'm on chapter 21, so I guess I'm getting near the end.

Just have to say, I don't like the music when you're exploring the monastery. It feels too tense, and it causes me anxiety.

[Leon]

Free Jeritza is good, I will be amused if he has supports with Manuela.

[Nester the Lark]

All right, finally finished Three Houses. I was playing on Normal Classic, and it took me about 85 hours. I did not let any units die, but that was pretty easy with the Divine Pulse.

As someone who has only previously played pre-Awakening FE games, I think I kind of agree with YL in that it didn't quite feel like Fire Emblem. I think I've mentioned in the past that FE can feel a little rigid, but maybe Three Houses went a little too far in the other direction. All the instructing, exploring the monastery, and the endless support conversations got a bit boring and tedious for me. I know a lot of that is optional, but if I skipped it, then I would feel like I was missing something. I did like customizing my characters to a degree, but it felt like it took too much effort.

At the same time, I also understand that Fire Emblem has to evolve and try new things, and that's better than stagnating, so I can't begrudge it. It was a very ambitious game, with its multiple routes, customization, and full voice acting, and I appreciate that.

I liked that I played a character in the story, which was something I liked about the tactician in FE7. I don't know if this had quite the same charm, as you're not just an observer that the characters occasionally talk to, but there were a few instances where I did feel like I was connecting with other characters on a personal level.

And speaking of which... (ending spoiler)

SPOILER: Click to show

...I also liked that the marriage part was saved until the very end. It reminded me of Marth and Caeda's subtle romance in Shadow Dragon. I thought that was a nice touch to the ending of that game, and I think it worked nicely in this game as well. (And yes, I did end up with Marianne.)

So, yeah, don't think I'm going to play through the game again right away, although I am curious to try one of the other houses. (And part of me wants to put it on Maddening Classic, just to see how quickly I get myself wiped out. Probably in the tutorial stage.)

[nocturnal YL]

SPOILER: Click to show

Just finished Chapter 14 without killing Hilda or Nader (Almyra general). Warp is such a useful spell. I could have sent Byleth to finish off Claude and spare him, but I'd have to first enter Nader's range first and Byleth would get doubled. Dorothea (Meteor), Lysithea (Dark S and Thyrsus → Range+3) and Bernadetta (Bow Knight → Range+2) can remote-kill, but Byleth can't. (Ashe in my last playthrough can too, but this time he's a Dancer.)

Like I said before, I'm quite surprised to see much of Three Houses' gameplay stem from Echoes of all things. There are also shades of Genealogy of the Holy War (beyond just the story). They took the weirdest parts of two of the weirdest games, and added a lot of new ideas.

To be honest, I do start to miss the classic kind of Fire Emblem. Standard tale with a fallen prince (who should be nothing like a murderous boar) fighting back, two-tiered classes with level maxing at 20, stats don't go beyond 30, everyone uses iron weapons because anything above is wasteful, weapon ranks that don't mean anything (because of the previous point), and so on.

Oh, and the availability of more master classes. For whatever reason, there are only 9, including 4 horseback and 2 flying classes. Not only does it not promote variety, it also makes some units' transition to master classes difficult. The lack of promotion paths for some units is a problem of many other games though (FE1/2/3/6/15 all had this problem), and at least they can train to fit the available master classes here.

SPOILER: Click to show

Marriage at least makes more sense here; it's done at the end, and generally the jump from A to S isn't as abrupt and odd as Awakening and Fates.

Marth and Caeda's romance is anything but subtle in New Mystery of the Emblem.

[nocturnal YL]

Just finished Edelgard's route, and it really is full of bloodsheds. Even if you recruit everyone, there are still many unavoidable story deaths, especially if you count also the NPCs.

SPOILER: Click to show The ending cutscenes has blood too. Other cutscenes has stained blood on weapons, but let's just say the ending cutscene is quite shocking. …Is it really alright to have this game rated CERO:B (12+)?

I still think it's too short, but now it doesn't feel as much like the writers and asset creators didn't bother with this route. It's short, but it does make sense: the Empire already has the upper hand, and they just needed some extra help to start invading the rest of the land.

Not much to say here that isn't already repeated by other people. The gameplay is simple too, as most fights involve two steps: (1) send Lysithea, (2) win. This applies even to strong enemies like Catherine and Rhea, although Lysithea has to take initiative as she's a typical glass cannon mage with little Def and HP like Lilina and Sophia. I gave her all of my stat boosters for the final two chapters, as well as the Thyrsus staff, because overpowered mages is usually my preferred way to play Fire Emblem (I also like this aspect of Binding Blade).

The number of fools who thought it'd be a good idea to face Lysithea in this run amount to 402, out of 462 battles she participated.

My other major contributors included Bernadetta and Petra, both known for having good Spd. Ingrid has great speed too, and will actually double enemy swordmasters and falcon knights, but her Str is horrible. Actually, all Blue Lions units I used got bad stats for one reason or another. Mercedes and Annette had low Spd and Def, making them unsuitable for frontline battles. (At least Linhardt had decent Def and Marianne has crazy Res. Did I say I prefer magic units?) Ashe was okay, but in late-game he got overshadowed by Bernadetta.

One other goal I had was to raise skill ranks and class mastery as much as I could. Edelgard's route is actually a bad place to do this due to its short length, but I managed to get several S+, and a few slightly unconventional class masteries for characters I only use as Adjutants (such as Dark Mage for Sylvain). And because of how support ranks work in this game, I can expect to instantly unlock the S supports with several characters when I start my next run, saving the need to repeast the final two chapters.

My pairings are Mercedes/Annette, Ashe/Ingrid (wanted this last time but messed up), Edelgard/Lysithea, Linhardt/Caspar (I considered Linhardt/Marianne), Hubert/Ferdinand and Byleth(F)/Dorothea. The story itself really pushes Byleth/Edelgard hard, but the reason I started this run in the first place was to get Edelgard/Lysithea.

Now I think I'll take a break from this game, not because I get tired from it, but because I wanted to wait for the next update first. And I have so many other games I've yet to play.

[Nester the Lark]

Here are some fun statistics from a Famitsu poll. (Sources here and here.)

Male Character Poll

Dimitri (1,335)
Claude (1,249)
Felix (1,160)
Sylvain (913)
Ferdinand (661)
Byleth (572)
Lorenz (566)
Hubert (523)
Ashe (458)
Linhardt (398)
Caspar (322)
Raphael (315)
Dedue (287)
Seteth (280)
Gatekeeper (195)
Jeralt (180)
Rodrigue (104)
Cyril (90)
Hanneman (74)
Alois (69)

Female Character Poll

Bernadetta (1,083)
Lysithea (1,008)
Hilda (988)
Edelgard (916)
Ingrid (767)
Mercedes (721)
Byleth (709)
Shamir (675)
Marianne (555)
Annette (540)
Sothis (440)
Dorothea (418)
Flayn (333)
Petra (236)
Leonie (231)
Rhea (120)
Manuela (97)
Catherine (71)
Kronya (29)
Judith (10)

Play-through count

- 1,149 respondents were on their fourth play-through
- 1,081 respondents were on their second play-through
- 827 respondents were on their third play-through
- 418 respondents were on their first play-through

First class chosen

- 1,396 respondents chose the Blue Lions as their first class
- 1.185 respondents chose the Black Eagles
- 898 respondents chose the Gold Deer
- of the 1,185 respondents who chose the Black Eagles as their first class, 923 first chose the Edelgard route, while 262 chose the church route

Favorite difficulty

- Normal/casual: 1,385
- Normal/classic: 644
- Hard/casual: 311
- Hard/classic: 845
- Maddening/casual: 41
- Maddening/classic: 227

Maddening difficulty

- 115 respondents had already cleared the game on maddening difficulty, and 489 were still playing it on this mode
- 1,597 answered that they were planning to play lunatic difficulty in the future
- 1,190 had no plans to do so
- of the players who did play in maddening difficulty, 164 chose did so in new game plus, while 426 chose to start completely fresh

amiibo and online elements

- 689 used both amiibo and online elements
- 1,156 used online features only
- 285 used amiibo only
- 1,267 used neither

First S-rank

- Ingrid – 95 votes
- Mercedes – 120
- Dorothea – 121
- Linhardt – 136
- Bernadetta – 179
- Lysithea – 220
- Sothis – 275
- Claude – 339
- Edelgard – 499
- Dimitri – 596

Most popular job classes and skills

Favorite beginner/intermediate job class:

- Soldier – 33 votes
- Monk – 33
- Fighter – 36
- Priest – 66
- Armoured Knight – 88
- Mage – 102
- Dark Mage – 128
- Brawler- 130
- Mercenary – 135
- Myrmidon – 163
- Cavalier – 166
- Archer – 263
- Lord – 358
- Thief – 476
- Brigand – 564
- Pegasus Knight – 583

Favorite advanced job class:

- Warrior – 33 votes
- Bishop – 64
- Hero – 89
- Grappler – 108
- Fortress – 116
- Dark Bishop – 117
- Warlock – 136
- Paladin – 205
- Assassin – 533
- Swordmaster -539
- Sniper – 569
- Wyvern Rider – 781

Favorite master job class:

- Great Knight – 62 votes
- Holy Knight – 94
- War Master – 179
- Dark Knight – 227
- Bow Knight – 389
- Gremory – 448
- Falcon Knight – 515
- Mortal Savant – 587
- Wyvern Lord – 773

Favorite special job class:

- Commoner – 40 votes
- Noble – 44
- Armored Lord – 52
- Emperor – 86
- High Lord – 108
- Wyvern Master – 112
- Great Lord – 332
- Enlightened One – 595
- Barbarossa – 690
- Dancer – 1,181

Favorite class abilities:

- Bow range +1/2 – 113 votes
- Canto – 128
- Fiendish blow – 285

Favorite combat arts:

- Healing Focus – 165 votes
- Deadeye – 206
- Curved Shot – 287

Most popular crest

- Cethleann – 90 votes
- Gautier – 94
- Blaiddyd – 115
- Riegan – 127
- Maurice – 147
- Indech – 207
- Gloucester – 227
- Flames – 827
- Fraldarius – 946

Most popular music track

- Japanese version’s theme song, Hresvelg no Shoujo ～Fuukasetsugetsu～ with 644 votes

So, Golden Deer were least chosen house. Also, Marianne wasn't in top ten first S-Ranks. I guess I have very individual tastes.

If I play again, I was thinking of maybe doing Black Eagles/Edelgard route. I'd probably keep the difficulty on Normal/Classic. Also, I'd probably play as female Byleth just to mix things up. Don't know about S-Rank. In Golden Deer, I would have picked Ignatz. Every chance I got, I told him to go ahead and paint his little heart out.

[Nester the Lark]

Started an impromptu second playthrough, but not really with the intent of finishing it. As I mentioned above, I picked Black Eagles, Normal/Classic, and Female Byleth.

Two things occurred to me:

1. I already miss my Golden Deer kids.

2. Other FE games I've played made it feel like I was on a journey, with each battle being another stop along the way. But with Three Houses having a hub that you always return to, it never really feels like I'm going anywhere. I kinda miss the feeling of the journey.