Topic: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I hated Fates with a burning passion, and am of the opinion Corrin is the dumber protagonist of the series. I prefer Eliwood and Roy over him, and those are nothing to write home about.

While Birthright has a somewhat serviceable, if lackluster, story, the train wreck it was in both Conquest and Revelations burned me badly. I had to force myself to finish Conquest and that was because I fell into the hype and hunted the special edition.

I’m sticking with the normal edition this time. If IS starts doing something stupid again I want to simply trade in the game, and since my local game store doesn’t accept special editions.

Yeah, I skipped Fates because I didn't want to be a part of that multi-version mess. I'm glad they didn't separate the three houses into three versions...

@Tyranexx The entirety of Conquest boils down to Corrin suffering an increasingly ridiculous set of indignities so that he can get the king to sit in a chair and reveal his true nature to the rest of Corrin's family. It's possibly the lamest plot ever.

Birthright was... OK. Diet Awakening with some better mechanics and maps.

I was so tired of Fates after those two that I never even bothered playing Revelation before selling off my special edition cartridge.

@Ralizah Precisely. I was intentionally vague since I was trying to avoid spoilers. XD The game as a whole was fairly enjoyable, but the story definitely had little to nothing to do with that. I generally agree with your evaluation of the overall plot. In terms of pointless deaths, I felt that Lilith's didn't really serve any true purpose.

I don’t really think hesitation is warranted in the case of Three Houses. Everything we’ve seen indicates they’re taking a different direction. Half ways a return to form, half ways charting new territory. Children mechanic is out. Time travel is out. Weak story and characters is out (judging not only by the exciting premise, but the leak which reinforces an amazing story for Three Houses).

I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever this is going to be the Fire Emblem of my dreams.

An excellent video showcasing the characters of Three Houses. This is perfect reference material for those looking to decide which house to choose

You mean which 1st, @JaxonH ....? I'll be replaying for the others, anyway

Dimitri went from being the least popular house to the most popular house, while Edelgard went from being the most popular house to the least popular house.

Edelgard is the new Dimitri and Dimitri is the new Edelgard.

Personally though, I’m going with Black Eagles. Bernadetta the introvert self seems like an interesting character, as does Dorothea, the classy songstress with the hat, and that light blue haired dude Caspar. Also like Petra. The purple hair is awesome and warpaint under the eye just sets off the whole look. Dark green haired Hubert seems like an enforcer. Get er done at all costs kinda guy. And Edelgard, I like her.

I’m not sure if I really want to replay the game three times. I made that mistake with Fates and burned out after finishing Birthright and 90% of Conquest. Never finished the game or even touched Revelations. So, I kind of want my experience to be unique this time. Pick a house and commit to it. Let that be my play through and enjoy it. Down the line if I decide to come back and replay the game, I can always make a different choice then.

Yeah, I didn't mean 3 times back to back.... Play other games in between

Some new info via JP download cards.

Amiibo will be compatible in some capacity. Online service used in some capacity, presumably the statistics on choices of other players. DLC confirmed as well, which is great to hear. Always nice to see more content is coming. And I'm glad they didn't announce it prematurely.

Misplaced pride made me put down Fates: Conquest for about three years because I was stuck and didn't want to switch to Phoenix. Now I have. I hope to beat Conquest and Revelations before Three Houses is out.

I'll probably get Three Houses in its first week, but I don't plan on getting the collector's edition. $100 is steep, even with a lot of collectibles.

@JaxonH I imagine the worldwide release (first time in the franchise) is the main factor why Three Houses DLC hasn't been announced yet. DLC for the 3DS games were announced close to the Japan base game launch which meant months/years before the rest of the world get the base game.

I am beyond ready for this game. I'm on information blackout until it drops (Aside from what was shown in the E3 trailer) but I've been listening to the few OST pieces in the wild nonstop. Love the theme song! Can't wait!

@JaxonH I like the Three Houses approach to multiple campaigns, personally. Each of the houses will provide a fresh perspective on plot events, making it rewarding to play over again, but since all of the campaigns will cover the same set of plot beats, you don't feel like you're missing anything if you wait months or even years to play through the game again. Also, keeping it down to one plot instead of three allows the narrative to feel balanced and complete no matter which house you choose.

I'm pretty sure my choice will be the Golden Deer.

@Grumblevolcano
That's actually a really good point. Now that you mention it, I do recall that being the case.

@Ralizah
Golden Deer is my 2nd pick. And ya, I definitely prefer this approach over Fates. I actually would have liked Fates approach just as much had they nailed the story and characters. Think they were just spread too thin though

I definitely wanna play this game, but I feel like I should play through a couple of backlogged titles first. Those titles being FE Fates: Birthright and Shadows of Valentia. I know there's no plot relation but also wanna get them off of my plate.

Not every franchise will make the same leaps.

That said I think Pokemon is looking absolutely delightful. If I were as much of a Pokemon fan as I am a Fire Emblem fan, I'd be just as excited.

@DarthNocturnal
Fates was still, overall, a pretty great game. Story in Birthright wasn’t nearly as interesting as Awakening, and the characters were bland. Conquest had far better characters than Birthright but still fell short of Awakening’s, and the story was goofy. But I’ll be darned if it wasn’t some of the finest gameplay and best maps in the series to date. Even the DLC maps were better than most of the main maps in other mainline entries. Their map design was A game all the way. Even now Fates stands as my absolute favorite in the series when it comes to gameplay and map design.

Overall, Fates fell short, but overall it was still a pretty good game. When you have gameplay that good it really doesn’t matter how bad the story or characters are. They could literally strip out all the story and dialog, and the gameplay and map design would carry Fates.

Wouldn’t recommend playing it before Three Houses. But I would recommend playing them, at some point.

Echoes had way worse map design, and the gameplay was good but muted due to being a remake of the second game, and... The DLC was absolute garbage. But the story and characters were so good in that game, with surprisingly impressive voice acting, that it really made up for the more simplistic gameplay and maps. I’d recommend playing that one at some point too.

Of course, Three Houses is top priority now.

My main complaint with Fates’ gameplay would be with the Pair Up mechanic and how the game overly revolves around it. The game is incredibly Aggro largely due to it and how frail most characters are. It basically forces you to either use it or get destroyed by the sheer number of enemies who will immediately pair up against you. So you’ll commonly have to turtle up and the game just breaks down to that

I feel like both this thread and the Pokemon Thread have turn into complaint-fests. :/