I've been playing Fire Emblem since it first got localized in the west. The core gameplay is incredibly fun. It's deep without being excessively complicated. Each game has its unique touches but the gameplay elements specific to Fire Emblem: Three Houses don't suit me at all. Given how well received this game was, many people who read it will probably write me off as a rambling idiot. This post assumes that you have already played the game. I have made it up to chapter 17 in the Blue Lions path on hard classic mode.
Fire Emblem at its core is a very linear game. You watch a story cutscene, manage your inventory, fight a battle, watch another cutscene, rinse and repeat. There is no optional backtracking. Most reviewers will criticize games for being "too linear". I think that in the case of Fire Emblem, being linear streamlines the experience.
Some Fire Emblem games make the games feel less linear by including a world map. Fire Emblem: Three Houses does things differently by letting players choose different tasks to complete two to three times a month. The problem here is that the most rewarding tasks are also the most time consuming.
Rest and seminar tasks are quick but they give the player less reward. You can't choose which units attend a seminar and rest only restore half of your units' motivation.
Exploring the monastery gives you the best rewards. You can give gifts to and have tea with other units to improve their support with you; when you reach a B rank support they will ask to join your house. Sharing a meal raises units' motivation up to the maximum; this gives you the most control over their skill growths allowing you to customize them. Gardening gives you gifts, ingredients and stat boosting items. The training grounds lets you compete for gold and a prize item. Faculty training raises Blyeth's weapon levels. Items lay on the ground for you to pick up; you can use amiibo to get extra items. Some shops can only be accessed by exploring the monastery. Quests give you free items and renown which can upgrade the statues to accelerate weapon level growths and get extra divine pulse charges. There is a lot to be gained by exploring the monastery but it takes a lot of time.
The monastery sections would be a lot more bearable if the game gave you an option to reduce it to a series of drop down menus and remove the pointless eating and tea time cutscenes. This would make them way faster.
Battles can be interesting but the extra experience makes your team overlevelled. I only battled outside of the main quest when the game prompted me to. This was monastery quests, side-story missions marked green on the calendar and monster battles marked red on the calendar. At the start I battled every time the calendar was marked red but stopped because it took time and my team got overleveled which made hard mode feel like easy mode. The side-story missions are fun, add to the game's story and provide unique items but there shouldn't be any monastery quests or monster battles; they make your team too overlevelled.
It is true that you can automate these tasks but I wont trust the AI to build my team the way I want it. Team building should have been a lot more streamlined.
Some classes don't build nicely. The Pegesus Knight is an intermediate class but the Falcon Knight is a master class, with no good options in between. You have to grind on axe or riding levels if you want to be a Paladin or Wyvern Rider in your advanced class. The Mortal Savant class is not worth using. Sword users are better off staying as a Swordmaster, Hero or Assassin. Magic users should stay as Warlocks or Dark Bishops. The game has two notable dark magic users, Hubert and Lysithea. The Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are locked to male characters. Lysithea has to wait until she becomes a Dark Knight to get a power-boost from Dark Tomefaire.
The game's difficulty is dumbed down and doesn't incentivize players to play on higher difficulty settings. Normal mode is ridiculously easy and should be renamed appropriately. It would be nice if the game displayed a nice looking medal on the title screen if players completed the game on the hard or maddening difficulties in classic mode.
In battles the graphics take after the style of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I strongly prefer the 3DS graphics style.
The core elements of Fire Emblem games are very well done here. The battle system has some unique twists in the form of adjunctant units and battalions. The story and characters are interesting. Fully animated cutscenes for the more significant story sections make the game more cinematic. I'm not a fan of voice acting but it is done well here; we never would have known how to pronounce half the charaters' names without it.
I don't see myself playing through the other stories because the amount of time it takes to get through the padding then get something done in the main story is just silly. Once I complete my first playthrough, I am done with this game.
TLDR: The main quest is fucking brilliant but the amount of padding between each chapter is beyond excessive.
Fire Emblem at its core is a very linear game. You watch a story cutscene, manage your inventory, fight a battle, watch another cutscene, rinse and repeat. There is no optional backtracking. Most reviewers will criticize games for being "too linear". I think that in the case of Fire Emblem, being linear streamlines the experience.
Some Fire Emblem games make the games feel less linear by including a world map. Fire Emblem: Three Houses does things differently by letting players choose different tasks to complete two to three times a month. The problem here is that the most rewarding tasks are also the most time consuming.
Rest and seminar tasks are quick but they give the player less reward. You can't choose which units attend a seminar and rest only restore half of your units' motivation.
Exploring the monastery gives you the best rewards. You can give gifts to and have tea with other units to improve their support with you; when you reach a B rank support they will ask to join your house. Sharing a meal raises units' motivation up to the maximum; this gives you the most control over their skill growths allowing you to customize them. Gardening gives you gifts, ingredients and stat boosting items. The training grounds lets you compete for gold and a prize item. Faculty training raises Blyeth's weapon levels. Items lay on the ground for you to pick up; you can use amiibo to get extra items. Some shops can only be accessed by exploring the monastery. Quests give you free items and renown which can upgrade the statues to accelerate weapon level growths and get extra divine pulse charges. There is a lot to be gained by exploring the monastery but it takes a lot of time.
The monastery sections would be a lot more bearable if the game gave you an option to reduce it to a series of drop down menus and remove the pointless eating and tea time cutscenes. This would make them way faster.
Battles can be interesting but the extra experience makes your team overlevelled. I only battled outside of the main quest when the game prompted me to. This was monastery quests, side-story missions marked green on the calendar and monster battles marked red on the calendar. At the start I battled every time the calendar was marked red but stopped because it took time and my team got overleveled which made hard mode feel like easy mode. The side-story missions are fun, add to the game's story and provide unique items but there shouldn't be any monastery quests or monster battles; they make your team too overlevelled.
It is true that you can automate these tasks but I wont trust the AI to build my team the way I want it. Team building should have been a lot more streamlined.
Some classes don't build nicely. The Pegesus Knight is an intermediate class but the Falcon Knight is a master class, with no good options in between. You have to grind on axe or riding levels if you want to be a Paladin or Wyvern Rider in your advanced class. The Mortal Savant class is not worth using. Sword users are better off staying as a Swordmaster, Hero or Assassin. Magic users should stay as Warlocks or Dark Bishops. The game has two notable dark magic users, Hubert and Lysithea. The Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are locked to male characters. Lysithea has to wait until she becomes a Dark Knight to get a power-boost from Dark Tomefaire.
The game's difficulty is dumbed down and doesn't incentivize players to play on higher difficulty settings. Normal mode is ridiculously easy and should be renamed appropriately. It would be nice if the game displayed a nice looking medal on the title screen if players completed the game on the hard or maddening difficulties in classic mode.
In battles the graphics take after the style of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I strongly prefer the 3DS graphics style.
The core elements of Fire Emblem games are very well done here. The battle system has some unique twists in the form of adjunctant units and battalions. The story and characters are interesting. Fully animated cutscenes for the more significant story sections make the game more cinematic. I'm not a fan of voice acting but it is done well here; we never would have known how to pronounce half the charaters' names without it.
I don't see myself playing through the other stories because the amount of time it takes to get through the padding then get something done in the main story is just silly. Once I complete my first playthrough, I am done with this game.
TLDR: The main quest is fucking brilliant but the amount of padding between each chapter is beyond excessive.
Last edited by thewannacryguy,
