The upcoming Switch release Fire Emblem: Three Houses promises to offer plenty of bang for your buck – with Intelligent Systems' director Toshiyuki Kusakihara revealing it took him 80 hours to complete just a single storyline, during an interview with the French video game website, Jeuxvideo.
Here's a translation (thanks, Serenes Forest):
To complete the game with just one of the three houses, it took me 80 hours. I did not skip the dialogue or cutscenes, of course. So if you want to do the three paths, it can take you more than 200 hours.
So, more than 200 hours – assuming you don't skip the dialogue or cutscenes. Do you think you'll be able to set aside enough time to play through all three pathways? Which house will you side with first? Tell us down in the comments.
[source mynintendonews.com]
Comments 55
I'm really interested in this game.I think I have only ever played one Fire Emblem game before a long time ago but this ones new gameplay,features and overall style has me excited for it!
Can't come quick enough for me. Black Eagles / Edelgard for me as I tend to have a soft spot for axe wielders since good old Dorcas in my first GBA Fire Emblem.
But is it actually fun to play? That's the real question. I wasn't too keen on the 3DS era Fire Emblems so I hope this one does appeal to me more (Even though the anime high school setting is already blegh).
The longer the better! I spent 200h+ in BoTW without even doing all the side quests and I didn't realize I spent that amount of time until I checked on my profile so fun was the game.
I love fire emblem games, although I haven't played the 3ds ones.
I really love long games when they are good!
I am so excited for this game. Can. Not. Wait.
holy! good bang for buck!
I have a tendency to restart the game every time one of my characters die, and yet I still refuse to turn permadeath off. So It'll likely take me about twice as long to complete...
Noted!
@Expa0 When you say 3DS era, did you also play Echoes: Shadows of Valentia? Because a lot of people didn't play it and it's a lot different from Fates and Awakening.
Also, it's less anime high school and more Military Academy.
@Hinade
That one has its own brand of problems, but it is probably the best of the bunch overall.
Length doesn't bother me too much, give me good gameplay and I'll be happy
It's Fire Emblem, of course I am ready. If this game lives up to even Awakening levels of quality I will be ready. If it somehow is as good or better than the GBA titles, 200 hours would be the low estimate for a Fire Emblem title.
This game appears to have an intense amount of replayability for different builds of your army. I could see myself replaying the same routes more than once, potentially, to try new things.
Already predownloaded the bundle! This is great to hear. Sunk so many hours into Awakening and Fates. Can't wait to do that with this one.
@Desrever Oh man, I have exactly the same problem, somehow by turning off permadeath I feel like it’s ‘cheating’ despite me just having to reset the game every 2 minutes.
@Xelha Never play a long game before or do you just not think a FE game can be meaty?
I put in a lot of hours on Persona 5, so I think I can wing this. Definitely have something to do here.
Music to my ears !... or eyes rather
I think Fates took me about that long per playthrough but I was trying to pair everyone up so that took time.
Still not sure if I want this game...I don't really have the schedule for these long games anymore.
80 hours may be too long for me. I enjoy actually finishing my games without being tied down by one game for too long. 20 - 30 hours for a single story line would have been much better.
That's fine, so long as that length isn't down to padding that makes the game drag. Here's hoping we just happen to be getting a really complex, in-depth, and epic fantasy narrative.
Makes you think of another RPG thats a 100+ hours of gameplay and Atlus refuses to put on Switch, right? So this proves it’s possible, even if the game isn’t 80 hours per house.
@Xelha I haven't found too many games misplacing how long they are. Do you have any examples?
Most Fire Emblem games are around 25-35 hours, which seems like a perfect length for a Fire Emblem game (just talking main campaign obviously). As seemingly one of the only gamers that doesn't fetishize excessive length for no reason, 80+ hours seems like an absolute slog. It's sad that developers still boast about this sort of thing as if it's a positive thing and it's still reported on and commented on as if it's a positive thing (which would not be the case in any other industry). "Yay, our game is going to be incredibly boring and padded and stretched out to breaking point, that most people don't have the time for!"
@nessisonett @Desrever I mean, having to restart all the time is not necessarily a reason to turn off permadeath in my book.
Whether you actually just let them die or you restart the mission, in both cases you have to look out for your characters and think about what you are doing.
In casual mode you don't have to do that at all, which can severely change the way you are playing and also change the way the game feels, since it has far less tension to it (at least to me.).
That is also a reason why I am part of the faction that dislikes the existance of casual mode in general. Since new players tend to play in casual mode (for obvious reasons), I feel like they are not experiencing what FE really is about, which I just find to be a shame.
Not that someone can't simply find casual mode genuinly more fun, I am a bit torn because of that.
In Shadows of Valentia you had a way of turning back time during a mission for a set amount of times. I think that is a good way of preventing restarts without giving the player a free pass for just letting everyone die all the time... Seems like Three Houses will have that too.
The question always is, WHY is the game as long as it is?
In general I would say, the longer, the better!
Problem is if the game achieves its length by needlessly stretching out parts and doing other things that just make the game longer for the sake of it being longer. In that case I rather have a shorter game.
If the game is genuinly longer through actual good content, then that is a great thing.
@Kirgo Oh yeah, I loved the way Shadows of Valentia let me make mistakes and then find a way around them. If Three Houses has that, everything should be OK on that front.
@Xelha considering KH3 was toted as being 50 hours to be, 100 hours to 100%... yeah, developers exaggerate game length to sell games. I have my doubts it’s this long too, thought it still will be plenty long.
Fates on 3DS is not balance, 'Birthright' pathway is easy but the 'Conquest' is extremely hard. I never completed Conquest, it's crazy difficult. I hope they won't do that with the houses in this game.
Awakening is still the best.
I’m sure I’ll play all 3 routes at some point and then there’s the dlc, oh and the other 8 games I want that are coming in the next 6 months, plus my backlog...
@Haywired
I'm guessing that Three Houses contains a lot more animated cut scenes and dialogue than previous games had; so that probably increases the play time by quite a bit.
@Xelha I'd guess a large portion of the 80 hours were spent in the Officer's Academy tutoring and talking to the students.
Fire Emblem is my fav franchise, so I'm very excited since 2017 about this game. But looks like the hype exploded after E3, great marketing. Can't wait.
@Xelha I looked it up, it looks like the boasted 100 hours across both games.
https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=16449
If you look at the clear times, that's fairly close to what you would get if you did the main story and extra content, not counting a completionist run.
A normal run looks to be about 50 hours on average, so yeah they over estimated, depending on what they meant. Technically, their words were "enjoy over 100 combined hours of gameplay across the two classic titles".
Got that from their page https://finalfantasyxhd.square-enix-games.com/en-us/home/
This perfect for me. I just bought a house, so I'm on cheap mode. But buying zero games is just not compatible with me. Buying a game that long counts as saving money in my book.
Win/win situation.
...and that is why I don't play these games anymore. I played the GBA and DS games but this just requires too much time. Same with Xenoblade. I also have more kids and responsibility so I've accepted the fact that I don't have time for these games. But 80 hours for one path? Wow.
@Kirgo Completely agree with you.
Not a fan of using game length to judge quality.
@Expa0 Oof no, Echoes is by far the worst Fire Emblem game (you know, except Gaiden which is its origin) in the entire franchise.
3D models aside, even the DS era (shadow dragon and friends) games were better.
Echoes is by far the weirdest idea they could've had for remaking a Fire Emblem game... Because it's by far THE game that has the least to do with how the franchise is.
Which is partially also why most people didn't play it then, and didn't play it now. It's just not Fire Emblem-like, and the maps were devoid of proper strategy, mostly just opting for some terrible map where you move across it all, plug all your units at some choke point and kill the guards there, then continue... Or terrible "random" encounters in the dungeons where you literally just run up to enemies on a teeny tiny map where strategy is once again not much of a consideration.
Awakening is probably the most solid "newer" Fire Emblem game, and the one I hope they've taken the most inspiration from (outside Blazing Sword, which I hold as the best FE game overall).
I have mixed feelings about this, but I'm also not surprised. Most modern FE games have had a ton of content. On one hand, I'm thrilled that there's so much to do and see. On the other...well...I'll apparently be sacrificing a TON of free time, and that's just for one path.
My body is ready. But my wallet is not.
@Xelha I agree. I think the important thing to note about this time is that he listened to all the VO - which very few players actually do since you can read a lot faster especially the VO for leveling up and other tasks that commonly occur.
I poured 300 hours twice into 100% FFTA back in the day. But these days, missables are irksome and playing Super Mario Odyssey's main story through completionist lenses was about as much as I could handle. Something action-based like TWEWY wouldn't be so bad (some of those pin evolutions were bonkers, though).
So many games to play... Personally I'm more interested in hearing that your game does NOT require 80+ hours to complete (unless that game is BOTW2). I understand if you only get a few games a year you want longevity and replayability (is this still the majority of the demographic?) ...To me it's kinda more of a con than a pro. But maybe I'm in the minority? Would be interesting to see a poll on this.
Then it will took forever for me to complete
I can imagine it having 200 hours of game being great news for other people. Me personally have really been struggling to finish long games (especially if it includes grinding). So for me, as I was on the fence about this to begin with, this has pushed me to think that maybe I won't buy this game
this game is 100% worth $60 if your getting 200+ hours of content
I wonder how much of that 100 hours is from the DLC or the mini-games made of feeding the people that I've read about. I can do without those petting/feeding etc.. type mini-games within and without splitting a game path (pokemon style) just for the sake of selling another journey/storyline.
It pads unnecessarily by watering it down. I didn't bother finishing Fates for that reason. If you want to show three views of the story, make each 30 hours or something similar. They're slowly killing an otherwise great IP. Change without improvement is useless.
@Blizzia nah, being different is hardly enough of an issue to brand it the worst. And regardless of how you feel about it, stuff like the reamped archers/clerics and specially Milla's turnwheel are great additions to the overall design, and considering both are returning in Three houses, I'd wager IS also considers it true.
The worst entry (barring NES games for obvious reasons) is obviously Binding blade. Absolutely ludicrous hit rates, flash reinforcements galore, forgettable characters, the worst Lord in the entire franchise, mediocre growth rates, perishable divine weapons and everything in between. The only semi-salvagable thing about it is it's story mostly due to Blazing blade retroactively fleshing it and because Zephiel was fairly interesting until Ashnard made him obsolete.
Even a solid pseudo FE is better than a trash rendition of the FE experience. And yes, Shadow dragon (remake) is still second worse.
@Starcakes You mistake my words. It's not the worst merely for being different. It's the worst for utterly voiding proper strategy. So many uninspired map designs, archers having ludicrous range (courtesy of the bowrange skill) and so on.
I like Milla's Turnwheel, but I'd love if the feature was only available in Casual mode. It has no place in real Fire Emblem. You make your choices, and you stick with them.
Imagine if the AI were another player, and they cleverly ended up taking one of your strongest units. You then proceed to screech "THIS AIN'T FAIR, YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" and pop Milla's Turnwheel back then change up your strategy as if you had made no mistake.
Mistakes should be punished. I like the feature, but not for the REAL Fire Emblem experience. For that it is simply not a good fit.
I guess we'll agree to disagree on the worst FE game, since we have quite the different picture of Binding Blade
As far as my list goes, the worst FE game remains Gaiden, and second worst Echoes. For a lot of the same reasons you mentioned about Binding Blade actually... Forgettable characters barring the two main protagonists, ludicrous hit rates,... and even then, only Celica was really anything else than the self-insert shonen protagonist who goes from village boy to rebellion leader in a matter of days.
Yes, Alm was a bloody tragedy of a character. Not quite Shonen-level, but at times he was getting too close for comfort.
Celica was brilliantly written, but that doesn't excuse the terrible gameplay.
Also, Astra with Astral Blade and 50% crit. Wow. Just wow.
Now there's a question. What will be censored, altered and changed? I can't imagine not having original voices included too.
Do I really need to buy Japanese version again? Nintendo in house translations were always terrible, but after seeing what happened with Xenoblade 2...
All on one game card. 3rd parties take notice! And then on top of all of this, there's the Expansion Pass. So much Fire Emblem content incoming, LOVE IT!!! That said, I hope Intelligent Systems takes a year or so off of Fire Emblem and devotes their next release to a new Advance Wars game.
@Expa0 If you didn’t like the superb 3DS games, then it sounds like you won’t like this any better.
This actually makes me want to buy the game less... I don't have time for a bunch of lame filler waifu quests.
I am happy that the 3 pathways are all in one game. With Fates you had to buy 2 versions and one download version. Lame!
I myself only bought one version of Fates, and I probably only play 1 path of Three houses.
Eiji Ounuma also said something similar to Zelda BOTH, I can't remember exactly, but it took him several days to complete the game. Yet, later on, we witnessed there are players who was able to complete it within a day or two.
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