Topic: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Glad we got more info on this one. Another day one game for me. Poor wallet.

Yeah that's what worries me. They really nailed the formula with the 3DS games. I worry of regression to the mean.

Same thoughts here, though I'm not the best spokesperson for the franchise since I'm only on my fifth FE. I'm slowly warming up to the whole school concept, but I think I'm gonna need a bit more info on this one before committing.

Fire Emblem: Anime Light Novel looks really good. I will be buying day one. Hoping they add a Waifu Wars DLC later.

@Dezzy Awakening was good (terrible map design, but I liked it otherwise), but Fates was... uninspiring, between the terrible writing, the really obviously shoehorned in child-rearing element from Awakening, and the focus on underdeveloped My Castle systems. It needed to be shook up, and that seems to be what they accomplished here. It's always a risk, of course, but I like that they're taking chances and experimenting with a type of design for this series instead of going back to status quo from the 3DS games.

@Blitzenexx I've not played many of these games either (FE7, Awakening, and two of the three Fates campaigns, mainly), but I do have a passing familiarity with most of them.

@Ralizah: In order, I've played: Awakening, Shadow Dragon, FE7/Blazing Blade, FE Fates: Conquest (I hope to get around to at least Birthright eventually), and am now on Sacred Stones.

From the perspective of Conquest, I agree that the plot has as many holes as Swiss cheese and that My Castle didn't feel like it reached its full potential; the latter felt more like a tacked-on chore at times. The kids also felt shoehorned in here (pocket realms/dimensions), whereas in Awakening the explanation made more sense.

That said, Conquest's strong points are definitely with its (mostly) creative maps and an overall decent cast.

@Blitzenexx I dunno. The map design is better than Birthright/Awakening, but a lot of these maps also felt very gimmicky. Definitely beats the open fields of Awakening, though. I think, overall, I prefer the tighter level design of FE7 with a minimum of design gimmicks.

My big issue with Conquest's plot is how stupid it is: you go along with whatever horrible thing your "dad" conjures in his diseased mind, despite how often he seems to try to get you killed, so that you can convince him to sit in a magic chair that'll reveal his true form and allow you to convince your adoptive family to turn against him... and now I feel dumber for having even written that sentence. But, yeah, "tacked on chore" adequately describes most of the My Castle activities. The rubbing could have been some goofy fun, but Nintendo ensured we didn't have that benefit. And, on top of everything else, the localization was extremely subpar.

Birthright feels kind of like Diet Awakening sometimes, but it's overall a more tolerable experience, although it lacks any of Conquest's interesting map design.

I was terrified that they were going to try and copy the Awakening formula again, considering how well Fates sold. This is weird, though, and in a good way. It reminds me of Trails of Cold Steel as much as it does Fire Emblem.

@Ralizah: Some of Conquest's maps did feel a bit gimmicky, true. Overall I'd say they were decent enough; I had a lot of fun with the majority of them.

I've read that plot-wise, Birthright is better (though still not amazing) but falls short of Conquest in the map and (depending on the opinion) character department.

If there was a physical way to get Revelation besides paying for the overpriced and limited SE, I'd be tempted to try it as well. Some sources seem to indicate that it's more of a mess than the two main routes.

@Blitzenexx LE wasn't really overpriced, considering it costs the same as buying the routes separately, and you get a bunch of extra stuff with it. Holds its value well, too. When I sold mine, I got double what I paid for it.

After Conquest, I was so disgusted that I didn't even bother with Revelation, but I have a friend who played all three routes, and she confirmed that the writing for Revelation was somehow even worse than it was in Conquest. And Conquest was a disaster on that front.

Anyway, that characterization of Birthright is broadly correct. The maps are pretty plain in Birthright. In many ways, it's like Awakening 2.0, but with unnecessary additions (My Castle stuff) and a worse plot. The plot isn't insanely stupid, though, so it's definitely my pick for the "best" of the two Fates campaigns I played.

Got the Warfare edition.

The school setting sounds interesting. Still gonna get the game though, I have full faith the gameplay will be good and that's all that really matters to me.

@Ralizah: I should probably go into more detail about that (Or do you get my reasoning already? ). The LE when preorders went up was reasonably priced. The problem is, copies sold out faster than you can blink and now retail at both new and used for way more than they're worth IMO. I like my special editions for some franchises I enjoy when I can get them, but I'm not a desperate collector either.

I know little about the plot in Revelation other than it's supposedly the true route. Apparently mashing the two casts together wasn't seamless by any means. Some maps are also apparently gimmicky and not fun in that route.

Overall I enjoyed Conquest, but most of the plot (other than a couple of faint, hopeful glimmers) is indeed bad. The promise of a slightly better story is why I'm still interested in trying Birthright, plus I'd like to get to know some of the characters on the other side of the coin better.

I feel like this game has a lack of hype among the general audience. I wonder if the Fire Emblem enthusiasm in the 3DS era has just died down or is it that this particular game doesn't look that exciting yet?

Oh man, it’s time to get excited... finally. I’m really digging this new approach. After Fates played it so safe, trying to replicate Awakening in various aspects, I’m thrilled to see Three Houses do a complete 180 and just try something different entirely. New art style, new approach to story and setting, new mechanics, changes in an order of magnitude we haven’t seen in the series to date (at least in the west).

They’re keeping their hand close to their chest with the plot. They haven’t really divulged what set things in motion on the larger scale. Sending classmates out on assignments is clearly the equivalent of bonus XP skirmishes. A kind of “do at your leisure” thing, although the first several chapters of the game might incorporate that into the story while setting up the larger plot, just because you need someone to fight in the early chapters.

After watching the analyses of the reveal by GameXplain and LuckyCrit, my hype is at an all time high. I think seeing the analysis videos got me more excited than the actual reveal. There’s so many details I glossed over.

@Tsurii
As far as supports go, I love the support system as one of my favorite aspects of Fire Emblem. Not necessarily the “romance” aspect, just the support aspect as a whole. The conversations and gameplay benefits are addicting. Besides which, support conversations are a very small part of the game at large, and of that small part, 67% of the conversations are between male/male and female/female anyways, with only 33% being between male/female with the option of advancing S Rank. And of those 33%, the conversations themselves tend to just be normal convos like any other, and don’t really lean toward romance in the dialog until advancing S Rank. So numbers-wise, it’s a minority focus anyway. On top of which, advancing S Rank is optional, so you don’t really have to go that route if you don’t want to. You can just stay at A Rank like all others and call it a day. That said, I’m not opposed to advancing S Rank and marriage. It’s not a major appeal for me, but I’m not against it either. Just depends on the match, I suppose.

As long as they’re not forcing the whole children aspect like they did in Fates, I’m good. I loved how it was handled in Awakening. It fit the storyline and it worked well and it was original for the series at the time. But in Fates it was forced, didn’t fit, and just felt awkward.

In any case, that seems to be not a major focus for this game. We’ve seen nothing of the sort in the first two reveals, which tells me even if supports are present (and I presume they will be- I’d be upset if they weren’t), the whole S Rank think won’t impact plot. I’m sure the main character will be included, but I don’t really see the problem with that. The main character looks the same age as everyone else in the military academy. College-age military cadets training for war.

I’m curious to see how the conflict unfolds. Will it be the 3 countries going to war with each other? Will it be the church of Seiros going to war with the 3 Houses? Or will some outside group attack the alliance? Right now it’s anyone’s guess. They did mention the western church soldiers, but we don’t know if thats from church of Seiros or not. Church of Seiros is smack dab in the middle of the continent. Doesn’t seem to western to me.

@Tsurii
Awakening had the best support convos of any game in the series I’ve played. That game single-handedly sold me on the idea of supports.

Sometimes they were harmless side banter (in fact, they were most of the time) but it was charming and gave personality to the characters. I still remember the support with Cynthia and Lucina, and Cynthia was Chrom and Sumia’s ditsy daughter (I loved Sumia so much), and they got in an argument over killing an insect 😁 “Kill it! Kill it with Fire magic or something!”. “I’d rather die a craven than touch that horrid thing!”. Chrom comes in and scolds both of them, Lol lol those convos were pure gold. Then she was using Falchion to chop apples. She got an earful from Lucina for that one

@Dezzy Three Houses is competing with Heroes (Heroes is still being actively supported) and to be honest from the Direct segment, Three Houses is seeming like the worse game.

@Snaplocket Nah I'm serious, that Direct segment killed my hype for Three Houses. Something really feels off about it, maybe a later trailer will regain my excitement but right now it's gone from most hyped game of 2019 to not even top 5 for me.

A lot of my interest died off when I saw the squad thing in the game but I will reserve judgment since I imagine the big info dump on the game will happen at E3 the month before it comes out.

The reveal showing at the recent direct was not the focus of the entire game guys. Come now.

It was simply highlighting the systems in play in addition to the storyline and battles. To be honest it’s a massive upgrade from MyCastle or the barracks in Awakening. Or exploring locations in Echoes. This is fleshed out. This is far superior.

Doesn’t mean that’s the entire scope of the game lol. It’s still going to be Fire Emblem, with a story and conflict and chapters... everything we’ve seen about this game has shown it to be superior to previous entries. I don’t understand how somebody could not be excited for a game that’s better in every respect. They haven’t shown much on the story, but that’s a “TBD” more than anything. It seems to be taking inspiration from Romance of the Three Kingdoms though. Where three great dynasties band together to fend off a rebellion, but later turn on each other as only one can rule.

That entire reveal was just the fluff. The extras. The things you do in between. And compared to the things we did in between in previous games, Three Houses looks incredible.