Nintendo Fans In Japan Select Fire Emblem: Three Houses As Their Favourite Switch Title Of 2019

No. Three Houses barely felt like a Fire Emblem game. So much time is spent messing around in menus thanks to the teaching system and whatever combined with godforsaken monastery roaming aspect it took a massive hit to the actual gameplay pacing, something that has always been one of the main benefits of Fire Emblem over any other SRPG series. There's other problems including the lackluster and boring map design, all units feeling exceedingly samey thanks to the teaching system, terribly balanced game in multitude of ways (classes, difficulty, side chapters) and then the whole choose your side thing also creates the problem the cast is extremely frontloaded and tiny, IE you gain pretty much every unit you're gonna have in the first portion of the game which leads to problems with the permadeath mechanic since there are no real "replacement units" so to say.

I applaud them for toning down the blatant fanservice and stupidity that was present in Fates but in just about every other aspect it feels either like a step back of a complete abandonment of a lot of the things that made the series great in the first place.

@Expa0 I am glad I am not the only one really disappointed with the game. The bit that gets me is the story; it is just convoluted and bad. I understand that they are trying to broaden the audience (and it has obviously worked) but it just feels like a massive sell-out.

FETH is a combination of great and tedious, so much so I have to take long breaks between the playthoughs of the different houses.
GOTY for me would be DQ11S

@Krest_arisen Hi Cobalt!* Here we go again with the same invalid critcisms of the Switch. "Where are the 1st party games?" There are a lot of exclusive titles to the Swi... Oh, why do I even bother? 😅

@BenAV AMEN!

*@WiltonRoots Is my troll radar working?

@Quarth Haha. I was thinking Cobalt had returned when I saw the comment.

@BenAV My wii U was basically a zelda machine.

@Krest_arisen
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Pokemon Sword/Shield
The Stretchers
Luigi's Mansion 3
Astral Chain
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
Suoer Mario Maker 2
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Cadence of Hyrule
Tetris 99
Ring Fit Adventure
Daemon X Machina
Super Mario Party
Mario Tennis Aces
Kirby Star Allies
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Super Mario Odyssey
Fire Emblem Warriors
Splatoon 2
Yoshi's Crafted World
Pokemon Let's Go
Snipperclips
Arms
1-2-Switch
Nintendo Labo

@Krest_arisen
Star Wars: Fallen Order is an exclusive? Didn't know that. 😯

A beautiful choice, truly. I agree wholeheartedly. As a long time Fire Emblem fan, I absolutely adore the game. People who are saying "It's not a Fire Emblem game" or "It's a step backward" - well they are entitled to their opinion, as I am entitled to think they have no idea what they are talking about.

News Flash!!!!

The Switch can’t play Jedi Fallen Order. Therefore... it sucks and is totally irrelevant.

@Krest_arisen

The Wii U had many great games, but good games can only help a system's success so much.

The Wii U was a commercial failure, and so in order to run a more successful company, they released their next console more quickly.

In regards to the exclusives, if you don't like some of the exclusives on the switch, or even the ports, you are in the minority. Just take a look at the sales numbers of any first party series on the switch as compared to the wii u and you'll see that many more people are happier on the switch.

The promised first party games also came out at a much slower rate during the wii u era, so this experience is no different. Only this time, there are other first party games, sometimes smaller sometimes not, to bridge the gap between major releases more consistently.

As a side note, golf story is far, far better than jedi fallen order. (In my opinion) It's also waaay cheaper. Would 110% recommend to anyone, especially as it's on sale right now.

@Quarth Morning! I doubt it's Cobalt as he's not banging the PS4 drum enough. Still, the post is clearly bait - coming in here and saying everything first party are Wii U ports then throwing in an EA game is a poor attempt at getting people to bite.

Hope you've been enjoying the festivities!

Wow, what happened to the japanese people? No Luigi's Mansion, no Astral Chain, no Witcher, no Mario Maker...

Who rattled the trolls cages?

Awesome. Three Houses is such an ambitious and engaging reimagining of the series. It's the big evolution in game design I've wanted to see since Awakening, and the writing is SO much better than in recent entries. And the Divine Pulse is such an ingenious mechanic: one that can and should replace casual mode entirely, imo.

This is easily the best first-party Nintendo game I've played since BotW in 2017.

And yeah, DQXI S is such a fun release as well.

GREAT top two!

Well deserved. Love three houses.

@Krest_arisen I see people have already responded to show how wrong you are, so all I can say is: have a nice day in troll land.

@WiltonRoots Yeah, he's trying hard, but we see through it. I had a nice Christmas holiday here in Sweden. How about you?

@NotTelevision I bet he's still here under another name. This person might not be him, but maybe a relative?

@Krest_arisen
WTF?!

Japanese fans have great taste IMO.

@Krest_arisen What’s wrong? Did Santie Claus give you Jedi Fallen Order instead of the Sword and Shield bundle for Christmas?

I know you asked him for that.

(Rocket deployed)

@Krest_arisen They’re not big fans of profanity round these parts, the temptation is there all the time to use it no doubt, but they prefer a more PG rated back n forth. 😀

@Quarth All good, spent a couple of days with the family, ate loads and drank gallons...got some family Switch time in too. Oh and got some socks!

I really wasn't a fan of FE becoming Persona but with how many people liked it, it's probably gonna stay this way.

Finally got into Three Houses and absolutely loving it. I suspect I’m near the end of the first part as it’s all coming to a head but it’s been a great ride. I especially love poaching the students I want, Petra and Dorothea are obviously the best and having them on Blue Lions is a relief.

@WiltonRoots Sounds great! I got a Christmas present for myself: two Switch games that hopefully arrives on Monday. AI: The Somnium Files (love the Zero Escape-trilogy on DS/3DS) and Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. But right now I'm occupied with FFVII (got the double pack on Switch from Play-Asia on my birthday, perfect timing).

@nessisonett Don't forget Bernadetta!

@nessisonett I was a late starter as well, but that game is great. I found out too late that you can actually bookmark the fights. I was marathoning those things, and wish I would found that feature sooner.

Silly me.

@Quarth I would if that bloody idiot would hurry up and join my house 😂😂😂

@Krest_arisen Your profanity-riddled comment above towards @Quarth has been reported, Mr. Poopy Pants. Maybe you can take your Wii U to Anger Management classes with you?

@Expa0 See, I don’t get that argument because if you’d played the real old-school ones then you know how tedious some of them are. Genealogy is an absolute slog-fest from start to finish, with a convoluted plot and extremely huge maps that take hours to beat. Thracia is slightly better, with again some major pacing problems. While I can understand why some people don’t like the changes to the calendar and such, the gameplay is just expanded Awakening, with all the streamlining that entails. If you really want to spend an hour in the arena in Genealogy every chapter, I applaud your patience.

@nessisonett LOL, but it's worth it. 😂 She has a great backstory.

If this is my top 30, Doom 3 would be somewhere at the top 10 instead of boring Undertale and Dragon Quest Builder 2.

@nessisonett
Well it's curious that you brought up FE4 because that game is indeed tedious and among one of the weakest entries in the series I would say. Aside from 4 and Gaiden every other entry before Awakening is better than anything the series has produced since I think.

@Expa0 The rewind feature from Echoes and 3H just saves so much time that I would have wasted resetting. Awakening is a much better game if you don’t take advantage of the grinding but it’s still the most polished portable game. While Fates isn’t great, Conquest far surpasses Binding Blade, Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones just through sheer scope. It’s not that I don’t like the earlier games but a lot of the innovations have been entirely worth it. The only major change I don’t like is the loss of the weapon triangle being as prominent and the more in-your-face fan-service.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Nintendo)
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (Square Enix)

I figured these would be the two just by sales from the start along with tweets and reviews on them.

Dragon Quest XI certainly deserves its spot. I am currently playing through it for the first time, and it is not only an incredible game, but also an incredible port. I have waited since Dragon Quest VIII was released on the Playstation 2 for the return of a true 3D Dragon Quest game. This one has not disappointed!

I've gotta get Undertale soon! Really liked how quickly Deltarune played, didn't take itself too seriously but was fun enough. Music's great from what I can tell too

@Kilamanjaro Undertale was the best RPG I played this year. I was very late, but still was in for a real treat. Undertale is also my number two RPG of the decade. (Xenoblade Chronicles X comes first).

I would have chosen Fire Emblem too. Clocked in a lot of hours in that game.

I really liked FETH; the persona-school-sim mash up works to an extent, I do agree on some criticisms of it (not impactful school activites or beginning difficulty is a bit on the easy side). I will attribute those aspects to an ambitious new direction and a desire to broaden the FE audience.

I enjoyed the story, I wonder if people are just a bit too judgemental on it due to how good previous FE stories are (although Fates is kinda...I'll reserve judgement till I finish it, but I already like FETH much better).

Overall I agree with it as switch game of 2019.

So, either Devolver games aren’t available in Japan or every Switch owner in Japan is a Japanese stereotype.

Vestaria Saga is finally available on Steam as of yesterday if any of y'all are looking for some old fashioned Kaga Emblem. I haven't played it yet, so I don't know if it's any good, but I'm really looking forward to getting into it!

@denpa-ben
Yeah, quite enjoying that one myself but it's definitely not a game for everyone. Kaga is not the kind of person that minds having blatantly unfair gameplay at times and since this is a project he made pretty much on his own there was no one holding him back from his more eccentric design choices. It is also a game made with SRPG Studio with no budget so it uses a lot of the base SRPG Studio assets (or slighly edited ones) which are not the most stellar thing in the world especially in the year 2019. The game was originally released for free, I believe, really you're only paying for the localization.

Still the map design is generally fun with a lot of events, some very well hidden, there's a lot of units to try out, there's a lot of challenge, managing your thin resources is a must and many of the original music compositions made for the game are quite good. The localization work is also very solid with a lot of charm and humorous (if sometimes crude) dialogue. If you can get over some of the rougher edges and fancy yourself in having at least somewhat high skill level with these kind of games then you should be able to enjoy it. For myself it's already way better than Three Houses is at the very least.

this is surprising because Three Houses isn't the best selling Fire Emblem in Japan and Pokemon sold way more you would think Japan would vote for Pokemon thankfully they chose the correct game for fan favourite Switch game

@Expa0 I have to agree. I still have not managed to finish the game, as it felt entirely hollow to me. The additions you listed add nothing of value to the experience. They just muddle the experience in my view. Worst of all though, even the core experience of FE is no longer intact. The removal of the weapon triangle, the new prediction system for enemy attacks and the all-around lackluster difficulty (certainly pre-maddening patch) have made a game that was always about making not just tactical but also strategic decisions ON THE battlefield into power fantasy.

Limited ressources are not longer a meaningful concern, and meaningful in-combat choices in general have been done away with (outside the story aspects that is). They might as well just remove the permadeath mechanic for good, the way it is apparently being handled going forward.

I'm glad the series exists and is successful, because I feel this could and should translate to a twin-pronged approach in the future. Games that address the Awakening (a game I very much enjoyed), Fates, Heroes, Three Houses Audience and games that address the pre-Awakening audience, with some concessions and enhancements made for sure.

Basically, what SMT did with Persona. I really love Persona, but I would not want to see it replace "mainline" SMT games any time soon. It is very much it's own thing and Personas popular in my view, keeps SMT as such viable and even branching out into all kinds of other genres, be it rhythem games, EQ-clones and even Musou.

Having said that, I am worried that Nintendo will not handle FE the way Atlus handled SMT. They might only see the popularity and commercial success of the likes of Three Houses and decide to abandon the games legacy in favour of all that $$$. Sounds harsh, but they ARE a business after all.

Seeing how Awakening was supposed to be the last game anyways (not hard to believe looking at the success of previous games), it's hard to blame anyone for this. Still, as it is, I am about to loose interest in one of my all-time favourite series. The least they could do now, is to bring over a proper port of PoR(/RD) and see how that performs. I mean, who is to say that there is not also an audience for this, now that people are ... aware that Fire Emblem exist. I acutally now several folks who started with Awakening or even Fates and never played anything before that.

It's not like they "only" like their FE with mass fan service and breeding (of one variety of another), it's just that they don't know it any other way. Maybe they could come to love "old school" FE as well? I mean, that would not mean, that we could not have a game with a cast full of likeable characters either, as Awakening proved.

Anywho, Three Houses - very much to my dismay - left me cold entirely, and in a year with incredible experience to be had all-around, like Control, Death Stranding, Ace Combat 7, Resident Evil Remake, Life Is Strange 2, Disco Elysium, Sekiro and more, some of which I feel I will soon have to count to my all-time fav moments in gaming, plus even on Switch exclusives like Astral Chain and Luigis Mansion ... well, it just becomes - personally speaking - a disappointing footnote.

Many franchises, genres and studios seem more revitalized, even more so than last year (which remade God of War for instance and pushed Insomniac to never seen heigts, to name two examples). Capcom is out there killing it again, with more potential hits like RE3R already lined up and speaking of which, RE is back and better than ever before in my book.
Ace Combat as well, seems back and edging truely close to perfection as far as it formula goes, even if the story still falls flat. The gameplay and visuals are absolutely striking and it's still the most compelling VR experience I had sofar.
I could say similar things about From Software and Sekiro, but i think their ability to innovate while maintaining virtually perfection in every aspect of their design has been proven from DemonS to DarkS to Bloodborne already, with Sekiro and Elden Ring standing to add to that incredible streak.

In light of all of that, FE and Intelligent Systems failed to live up to the high bar set the last two years. No, Three Houses to me is not in the same league. Hell, I've been playing every Remedy game since the launch day of Max Payne 1 and Control feels like a true culmination of their efforts bringing together the best elements of all their previous projects. It might not be their best game in every aspect, but it shows that they are growing, learning and evolving in the right direction - and they started at a place, most developers will never even reach!

I hope the day will come, when despite suchcompetition, I can once again say that a Fire Emblem game is once again my favourite game of the year, as PoR was and let's not forget, that 2005 saw games like God of War, RE4 and Shadow of the Colossus. It certainly was no "off-year" for gaming either.
Right now though, that seems like lightyears ago.

Gaming and venerable franchises along with it evolved (just look at the upcoming FF7R) and Fire Emblem for some reason, seems to devolve into a less compelling all-around more shallow and certainly less focused experience

@SKTTR cool! Really looking forward to playing it 😁

@Expa0 Thank You Amen Brother, tell 'em, could not have said it better.

@Ralek85 @Ralek85 @Ralek85 I could not have said it better, you reached deep within the recesses of my mind and told everyone my inner feelings about one of my [once] favorite games, An epic series of chess-like strategy, a game of kings; before all this waifu/Persona/Hogwarts & NO strategy = Duibious Mix that was once a great game entitled: Fire Emblem.

4 out of the Top 30, eventually 9. Not bad for an American hapa...