Topic: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

@Snaplocket
That makes a lot of sense. I'm glad I'm not crazy. There were LOTS of times on Edelgard's path when I was just like... "wait...what? who is that?" And characters would just randomly never be seen again, or some would show up and act like I should totally know who they are. It was a little trippy. Fun, but a little janky in terms of the plot. I could see it really frustrating people who place story above gameplay, but I'm the opposite.

That’s mostly my issue with their execution of the separate paths. In that they are individually incomplete as stories. Some more so than others. Dimitri’s ending for example has its ending ruined when applying a critical eye since many plot points and threads are never concretely addresses. Making it feel empty

Yea, I do think the paths are inherently watered down due to having 4 entirely separate adventures, basically. That's a pretty big undertaking, so I can't fault them too much. Personally, I would've been cool with maybe just two really fleshed-out paths with lots more cinematics and such.

Hasn't kept me from instantly starting the game again, at any rate. And I haven't been so excited for DLC since Mario Kart 8 lol

I don’t think they would need to team up for each path to address it’s basic plot points. Each path could focus on its own aspects or side while atleast answering the basic plot threads it brings up. Continuing from my previous example, in the Blue Lions path it really doesn’t matter too much why Claude suddenly leaves or whatever. That’s his own plot and is never relevant much to the story the Blue Lions is portraying. On the other stuff such as what TWSITD are, the story with Rhea or even what Byleth actually is are never effectively addressed. The difference being that these are big plot points brought up throughout the story that have huge relevance. They don’t even have conclusion and are basically forgotten.

I've not finished a path yet (I'm leaning towards the Church at this point) but woo I think I'm far enough that I'm piecing things together. And I have to say...humans are flipping terrible. I didn't expect for IS to flip my sympathy so thoroughly, I went in wary of the church and ready to wave the Black Eagle banner and now? ...Humans are monsters. I remembered when I booted up the game I started murmuring under my breath. "Which dragon can't catch a break now?" (seriously being a dragon in the FE universe is a curse...you have all this power and either everybody hates you, wants to use you or your power drives you insane/makes you sleep to postpone the crazy or you have to leave and go to another dimension to ward off the crazy and be safe from humanity. ) Usually I feel bad for most of the dragons but understand why they need to be stopped. This time? Just...Just set fire to the world please, we don't deserve to live on it. Somebody give the dragons their own planet, they don't deserve this.

@Tsurii I won't say easy, as getting killed or going nuts or having to sleep to avoid going nuts is pretty bad. However having to live with the monsters that murdered everyone you love...and somehow you are the villain? Yeah I can't, I mean before the dragons were just nuts because they were dragons (which I always thought was idiotic but hey plot point to create a generic villain) but honestly there is some serious trauma (all of the dragons have some sort of trauma/dysfunction that was inflicted on them by war/humans) here that I'm just not mad at the church anymore. The bad thing is that humanity is still the root cause off all the issues but nobody is looking at that maybe we are the true monsters in this story. Can somebody just give all the dragons a hug in this game?

@Ryu_Niiyama I think Zephiel and Idunn would wholeheartedly agree with your post (but they can't because our human boy Roy killed them, the true villain of binding blade)

@Tsurii Yeah so I picked Black Eagles because Edelgard didn't seem "off" to me unlike the others did in the start, but I decided to do a Church play through because early Edelgard was a broken bird that I wanted Byleth to protect and support and eventually marry (I was against the romancing in this game until I saw the time skip in one of the JPN trailers) but now I'm just with the Church.

I feel like the only group actually addressing the root cause of the issue (human greed/lust for power/misuse of power) is the Church. And I'm feeling like everyone is taking a sledgehammer to the wrong problem and just making things worse.

Also Byleth makes way more sense now, to the point that it is interesting writing. I'd read a feature that described Byleth as the worst avatar/my unit but I'm starting to feel she is one of the better ones, by setting her as the pivot point for the current plot but not the crux of the whole thing the way Kamui/Corrin was and with a little more being upfront about WHAT the My Unit is instead of trying to sneak around it to give a different twist on each route the way fates did (which doesn't work because Kamui moves the plot so quite frankly if there was a funnel to the big bad I think a lot of the nonsense in Conquest would not have happened. Byleth is a very important part of the plot but it was moving forward and continues to do so without her input.)

@Edelgard Which I feel is compounded if Roy's mother is Ninian (whom I feel was the canon choice) because the cycle never ends. And yes I think Zephiel had a point. Then again Dragons and humans need to stay away from each other in FE. If they marry then somebody goes nuts or lose them or something (Nergal, Kamui's father..for spoilers) or if they start out peaceful it never lasts long.

I've never had any issues with Claude. People who are open about not being entirely upfront with people are easier for me to trust. I think he's probably the most trustworthy of the three starters.

Dmitri seemed like a ticking time bomb from the beginning.

Edelgard is an intolerable faux-ubermensch who tries to justify her own thirst for power. Or that's the impression she gives off. Maybe I'll grow more sympathetic toward her in my BE playthrough.

Ergh. I really need to get back to this game!

So I finished another game and am returning to FE3H for New Game Plus/second playthrough. Following Claude this time. Can anyone tell me, are the Soothis Shield and the Holy Temple a DLC thing that got added, or a NG+ feature? And have we heard any news about a release date for the DLC yet? Even a general estimate?

@Ralizah I completely agree with your opinion of Dimitri. I described him to my friend as "two steps short of a school shooter". He seems like he is right on the verge of getting set off all the time. Evilgard, I mean Edelgard is my waifu though and I will not tolerate anyone bashing her. All hail our evil queen! #noshame #totallyserious##butstilljoking

@Snaplocket Yeah, I realized that was wrong as soon as the E3 trailer happened. Nintendo couldn't have promoted Three Houses worse in the February Direct.

I haven't started Three Houses yet as even with the E3 trailer and gameplay changing my mind, I was still more hyped for Astral Chain.

So how’s the update and maddening difficulty? Anyone?

I started a new Hard playthrough post-update and made it to choosing Blue Lions, then saved and closed. Baby steps. I’ll consider maddening once I prove to myself I can beat it on Hard.

But I was thinking about a casual playthrough for maddening. Is it the one we thought was the lunatic difficulty? Where archers get poison strike and every enemy class gets a special extra? I know bosses can move in this difficulty but I’m not clear as to whether this is like a steppingstone to the full Lunatic with poison strike archers and all that, or if this is the actual difficulty and we just had the wrong name the whole time.

Ok so I got to the green hair and the flame Emperor unmasked. Woo. I have to say I haven’t been this hurt by a storyline in a long time. I picked the church and then reloaded to pick the emperor to see if reasons were the same an well I’m certainly mixed in opinion.

First and foremost I am on Rhea’s side. I think I have enough information to grasp that The enlightened one is a corpse vessel that is slowly becoming a living being so it does make Rhea’ obvious gambit an attempt at murder... but is it murder when you are killing a puppet/doll/effigy? People die for their gods all the time. People ask their gods to kill others all the time. If divinity is our only judge (according to religion and society) then I cannot look at the Immaculate One and feel anger. My heart aches for her though because her agony will never end. The second chance she thinks she has been given is an illusion. I’m now terrified to S Rank her at this point. Feels like abuse even if she is the only one aware. (Since there isn’t enough of Sothis left to be anything like what the Immaculate One hopes for. ) In this way she survived all of the horrors of her life for no payoff. I would have burnt the world down after the first war.

If this was a sci fi game the Enlightened One would be a sentient program or Android so I don’t think the Immaculate One is a monster. As best I can tell she did the best she could to follow the revelation of Sothis. (I’m assuming that she is either the first or last daughter of Sothis. If first she gained the revelation while grieving her mother if last that is worse because she was traumatized by her loss early. ) She put humans on a leash (just as religion and governments do now so there is a precedent) to keep them from self destruction. It isn’t perfect but it is better than an entire continent embroiled in war. Shamir’s confusion at the Enlightened One really shows how good a job the church did at keeping humans from just destroying everything and each other.

Which makes the Flame Emperor look really short sighted. Its fairly obvious where the relics come from and given the Enlightened One, the crests as well, but why attempt to claim the relics? To use them? Destroy them? That doesn’t erase the root cause... human greed, arrogance and cruelty. Even the Emperor seems to suffer from it as much of her motivation is vengeance for lives lost and pain endured and the arrogance that being inhuman makes you evil when it’s humans causing all of the evil acts so far.

Also because the Emperor’s plan is short sighted...I feel like it will only take a generation or two for humans to go back to injustice and lusting for power/godhood. So it solves absolutely nothing. But a ton of people will die.

That being said the Emperor means well but isn’t as much of a strategist as she thinks she is. She is trying to play too many sides and ends up imo an ineffectual pawn. Her allies are all monsters yet she deems the beast her enemy.

I just wish there was a fifth option. I think if there were less secrets between the Enlightened One and Immaculate One from the start a lot of this drama could be avoided. I really hope the dlc offers a fifth option to cut through the misinformation and stop the actual villains.

Loving the game though.

So here we are, three months after release. Do we think that FE: TH made it into the Switch's top-20 all-time best selling Switch games? A Google search for sales information didn't reveal much. According to Nintendo's June report, Yoshi's Crafted World held #20 with 1.1m copies sold.

@Magician Almost certainly. The game sold 800k units just on the eshop in July, after all.

Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-08-20-fire-emblem...

Yeah, that was the leading headline Google grabbed.

I could have sworn that I saw a post from Jason Schrier (or some other video game journo) that mentioned Three Houses had sold better than Fates, which was 2.85m, but I didn't find a source in the brief time that I looked.

I stinking love the game, I wouldn't put it in my top 20, I'd put it in my top 5, maybe top 3, hard to decide - but sales trends in gaming suggest to me that it wont sell as well as it might have in the past. People don't seem to like long, story driven games these day - instead preferring repetitive short match multiplayer games or watered down gambling disguised as mobile games.

Obviously it's not a universal thing - but judging by which games have gotten the most success in recent years, that seems to be where the masses congregate.

Sorry if this has been discussed, but how is the text size on the Switch Lite? I've played about 10 hours of this game on handheld with the regular Switch, and now that I've only got a Switch Lite now I'm thinking of re-purchasing.

Obviously it will be smaller, but what are you guys finding for the Switch Lite? I really want to jump back into this game but am hesitant.

Beat the Blue Lions storyline last weekend, 50+ hours in playtime. Even though it was an excellent playthrough, I don't know if I want to go on with the other houses, at least not at the moment. Too many games right now...
But some questions remain that I guess will be answered when playing with the Black Eagles or the Golden Deer. Well, that's for another day.

I really liked the Blue Lions storyline, most of the characters were likeable, though my favorite became a recruit: the shy Bernadetta.

The gameplay was superb as usual. The graphics could have been better and some of the slowdowns were really annoying. But in the long run it didn't matter. Hopefully they improve on it in the next FE game.

@Quarth Blue Lions was the first pathway I played. I did the black eagle and church pathway. Just golden deer left. Had to stop for a bit since it got so repetitive.