Topic: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Oh, wow..... 200 hours! p

I can't imagine the first playthrough is 80+ hours. That would make it significantly longer than other games in the series.

Totally random also but I'm also looking forward to Langrisser I & II Remake coming to the Switch. Its like Wargroove and Battalion Wars sort of deal from what I've seen of it.

@Ralizah The Officer's Academy is much more fleshed out than My Castle and the Barracks though. Could possibly be something like 50 hours Officer's Academy, 30 hours traditional FE gameplay?

Langrisser is more like Fire Emblem with recruitable grunts. I still don't know what to think about the remake. I'd only get it if it comes with the classic artstyle, but then I already own the original versions of both games, so it wouldn't really be much of an upgrade...

I didn’t like Langrisser, at least the original releases with English patched in. But I’m willing to at least give the remakes a look and reconsider, because they may be totally different having been modernized.

@Ralizah
I got 100 in Awakening, even if some of that was skirmishes and grinding the XP/money DLC maps. I think 80 sounds within reason for a game that looks to be much bigger with a lot more side content to do in between chapters. There seems to be 12 chapters before the time skip (I think?). And with at least 2 big battles per chapter (the one that you must clear to unlock the end of month mission, and the end of month mission), not to mention any skirmishes you do during your free time to train students (but let’s not count that just for the sake of our estimate), that’s a minimum of 24 battles before the time skip, potentially much more depending on the player. I usually do a map in about an hour, give or take? Plus the time spent at the academy in between (and we all know micromanagement can be the real time sink in FE), but let’s say another 15 hours at the Academy training your students and all that (potentially more). That’s an easy 40. Real easy. And then post time skip is going to be at least as long so if we just double that we’re already at 80.

@CanisWolfred Classic artstyle would be interesting. I think they advertise that in the trailer but I could be wrong. That said, I never got into Langrisser back in the day so I'm more hyped for the Remake then I am of the original.

So uhm... how about same gender relation ships in this one? I'll be upset if the option isn't there for at least a few characters.

A translation has been done on that 10 min video from Japan.

You have to turn on CC in the video settings, but there is English for the entire video.

And a great article from VG247:

By Alex Donaldson, Friday, 5 July 2019 12:03 GMT

After snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on the Nintendo 3DS, Fire Emblem is finally back on a main console – and its directors hope it’s the biggest and best entry yet.

In 2012, Fire Emblem’s days were numbered. At the time a B-tier Nintendo series, after a string of titles with middling performance the series was on its last legs. Development studio Intelligent Systems was tasked with creating a Nintendo 3DS entry, intended to be the series finale. Then the unthinkable happened – that grand finale was massive.

Fire Emblem Awakening became the best-selling game in the series in the West, while in Japan it was the fastest-selling entry on record. Fire Emblem had been thrown a lifeline – and now, a few games later, the series is preparing for a triumphant return to big-screen gaming with Fire Emblem: Three Houses for Nintendo Switch.

“To tell you the truth, it was a very big surprise,” Three Houses director at Intelligent Systems Toshiyuki Kusakihara says of Awakening’s success. “To tell you more, I can say… I honestly still don’t understand why it was such a success, as we didn’t realize – we didn’t make any change to our philosophy to make Awakening be liked outside Japan.

“I still don’t understand why it’s so popular,” he adds with a laugh. “It’s strange.”

Strange, yes, but also fortunate. Awakening’s success secured Fire Emblem a place as one of Nintendo’s most prestigious series’, which in turn has led to its big-budget return to consoles. Kusakihara says that Awakening’s legacy runs deep – right through to the team now being more aware of their Western audience and their tastes when developing a new title.

“When making games, it’s really difficult to be loved by everyone. But it’s easier to start thinking ‘what should I do not to be disliked by everyone’ – this way of thinking is easier,” Kusakihara muses when asked about the team’s approach to design. Through this, he says, the hope is that taking the series’ newfound Western audience into account won’t change what has historically made Fire Emblem great.

The hope is that Three Houses will be the biggest and best entry in the series to date – but coming off the back of 3DS games, Intelligent Systems couldn’t make a RPG of the scale of Fire Emblem: Three Houses alone – and that’s where Tecmo Koei come in.

“As far as this game goes, I’m pretty sure that without the help of Koei Tecmo it simply wouldn’t have been possible,” Kusakihara says of the studio.

“Or maybe it was possible, but it would have taken a lot more time,” adds Genki Yokota, Three Houses’ director on the Nintendo side of development.

Tecmo Koei is obviously a perfect fit for Three Houses; for a start, the studio has worked on Fire Emblem before with its musou-style action spin-off Fire Emblem Warriors, but the studio also has a rich strategy game history in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga’s Ambition.

Through Dynasty Warriors, the studio also has much technical experience in creating large-scale battles with a lot of characters on-screen, something Kusakihara marked as a key addition to Fire Emblem’s traditionally one-on-one encounters for Three Houses. In Three Houses, instead of one recognizable character fighting another in a given encounter, each character will lead a whole squadron of characters into a proper, more realistic-looking skirmish.

“When we were developing Fire Emblem Warriors, it was of course an action game. But Mr. Hayashi [Yosuke Hayashi, head of Team Ninja] was the producer of Fire Emblem Warriors, and he introduced us to a very strong strategy team,” Yokota says of the partnership. “Now, we’re working with that same very strong strategy game team on Three Houses.”

“Regarding the design aspect – Koei Tecmo didn’t do so much,” Kusakihara clarifies. “It was especially us at Intelligent Systems who did all of the graphics and design. For example, we had the help of a freelance illustrator Kazuma Koda [Nier Automata, Bayonetta 2] and also Chinatsu Kurahara [Uta no Prince-sama, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters], who was the character designer. My team and I were in charge of designs like weapons, monsters and other details like that. So in design terms, it was mainly Intelligent Systems.”

“The main plot, the game system, all the ideas, all the gameplay mechanics – that basis was all decided with Intelligent Systems also,” Yokota adds. “Then after a lot of discussion with Koei Tecmo, we figured out all of the details, and Koei Tecmo helped with programming the game.”

There is one aspect of the game that the developers admit may have been subconsciously inspired by Koei Tecmo, however – its setting, which sees the player character torn between three different rival factions – something that bears something of a passing resemblance to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the beloved 14th century historical novel that has formed the bread and butter of Koei Tecmo’s productions.

“We can’t say it was very conscious, but you know, we always talk with Koei Tecmo people – and some of them have been working with Three Kingdoms for a very, very long time,” Yokota says of the similarity between the Chinese classic and the rival countries and their heirs the player must choose between in Three Houses. “In our discussions, maybe it was an unconscious decision. We didn’t say ‘let’s make a homage to Three Kingdoms’ – it didn’t happen like that.”

“Perhaps it was for us a good starting point – to say okay, let’s do our version of three kingdoms with three people, three countries,” Kusakihara adds.

Three Houses certainly looks like the most expansive and accomplished entry in the series to date. Yes, there’s the previously-mentioned more dynamic battalion-based clashes and HD visuals, but the expansion to the game that has me most intrigued is the Garegg Mach monastery, a neutral zone slap bang in the middle of the continent that the titular three houses are jostling for control of. The monastery is the protagonist’s home, and it’s where the player will get to know characters that hail from all three nations.

The monastery is a significant expansion to Fire Emblem’s role-playing side – players will spend a lot of time in and around it getting to know characters through conversation and training, effecting both character relationships and combat prowess. The school-like setting and increased focus on relationships brings to mind Persona, but the developers say Atlus’ hugely popular series was not their inspiration. In fact, the game has been built with the fact that this might not be for everybody.

“If you’re not a very big fan of RPGs but like strategy, you can avoid all the RPG parts. If you only do battle you will automatically become stronger; it’s better to also do it with monastery mode, but you can also play without the RPG part,” Yokota elaborates. “On the contrary, if you’re a fan of RPGs but not of strategy games, you have some free map battle areas so you can quickly take part in battles to get power very quickly – and then you can step back and enjoy a lot of the RPG part in the monastery.”

“Some of your students will be very nice to you – you’ll have strong feeling towards them,” Yokota laughs. “For very emotional people, we suggest to you the casual mode, where characters can’t die forever!”

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is set to release for the Nintendo Switch on July 26.

Not gonna lie, I wish Persona 3 had thought that far ahead, I really didn't enjoy the School life sim parts of that game.

I mean, I think they'd only be changing it back to the classic art style. Which really shouldn't be DLC, all the did to the new art was add a sloppy filter that makes the sprite art look cheap, and hired a generic mobile artist to redo the character portraits. When I first saw it, I thought it was a mobile spin-off...

I like the social sim aspects of Persona and know I’ll like it in Fire Emblem, but I can still appreciate them providing the option as not everyone is going to be into it (and what’s amazing is, even if you skip it all you’re still getting more than a game’s worth of content).

Btw I like the look of the Langrisser remake, even if I’m not a fan of the original. But the reason I’m not a fan is I didn’t like the system of commanding little units Instead of individuals. It’s cool when it’s just a prop like in Three Houses, but in Langrisser it was center stage. It just felt like it would be better controlling individuals similar to FE.

I kinda get what you're saying, but I also always found it funny how in Fire Emblem, the battles never seem to involve enough soldiers to be considered more than a skirmish despite being told that entire armies are clashing. Langrisser's system of grunt units went a long way in making me feel like the characters were actual commanders in an army and not just living superweapons that single-handedly win battles that otherwise seem like they should involve entire legions. I'm sure those "props" will help, too.

@CanisWolfred
That’s true, but from a gameplay perspective it’s just more fun when it’s individual units, and while having more than individual units does enhance the realism of battles being more than skirmishes it just doesn’t outweigh how un-fun it makes playing the game, to me anyways.

I think Three Houses has found a good middle ground. They’ve addressed the issue of the small skirmish while still retaining single units.

@CanisWolfred I always kinda imagined it in my head that each individual unit was actually leading a platoon of that type of soldier. From the looks of it in this game, that is how they are showing it now.

Oh my goodness check this out. Fire Emblem isn't playing around

Ooh, awesome .... @JaxonH; there more like that?

Yeah, there’s gonna different types of those huge monsters in the game

This is similar to how I've always treated each series entry that I've played. Depending on the skirmish or battle, I sometimes imagine that the map you're playing is the "main" skirmish and that the normal/main armies with their own peon units are fighting nearby.

I do likewise like that they've added your own small units for each actual character to command.

Also, the giant wolf looks pretty awesome!

Agreed on the highly trained forces. The GCN/Wii entries took that to its logical conclusion. However I always figured that was what they were going for: the last of a royal house leading a last ditch effort to save their homeland. I just figure that there are actual war skirmishes happening in other parts and the parties you lead are more of an infiltration team/on the run. It somewhat makes 3H feel like a much larger scale because it sounds like they are doing a full out war rather than focusing on an infiltration/fugitive team.

Always wanted to play Total War. Or wait, that’s Warmhanmer. Total War looks cool too though. Zionich is a big Warhammer fan. When I talk to people who are huge fans it tells me the game has to be worth it’s salt in some respect in order for anyone to be that excited about it