Quick question before we go forward. You are aware that only the MC has romance options in Three Houses?SupahEwok said:
Fire Emblem 3 Houses - I think I miss the point
- Thread starter CritialGaming
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Going to have to second Err on all points here. I should also mention that while they doubled down on the "weeb shit" as you call it, the characters are actually really engaging. Especially since they don't all like each other, and judging from some of the support conversations they've had in my play through, the never will. I've got a couple of characters who despise each other on a personal level, but respect and care for one another on a professional level. it's much better than the "We're all friends~!" take that was in Awakening and to a slightly lesser extent in Fates. Even the ones who seem totally annoying actually end up being rather compelling. There's a character who has the whole ditzy air-head kind of attitude that I was annoyed by, but after seeing some of her support conversations with some of the other characters I'm actually considering building up repoir with her in order to see what her deal is all about.erttheking said:
Secondly, as for the story, it's tone shifts depending on which house you pick, especially in the later half of the game. If you really want a super fucked up and intense ride, the little bit I've seen of the Blue Lions route really goes off the rails in the second part of the game. Which is a dramatic shift as they feel the more "Fire Emblem-y" of the three houses. I'm doing the Black Eagles, and not going to spoil anything but the story is really nuanced and really makes you consider the choices you make, and reminds me of the good seasons of Game of Thrones. Golden Deer is the only one I haven't heard much on, though what I've read/heard is they're the most consistent in tone I think.
If none of that appeals to you, then yeah, makes sense you wouldn't enjoy it. As for the combat and gameplay, it is likely easier than previous Fire Emblems(especially since there's a rewind time button which is kinda broken), but that's only if you're trying to level up your main squad. I make sure to keep a B squad in reserve, and keeping them leveled is a challenge even on normal mode where you can fight in unlimited battles for exp. On Hard Mode, I don't think you get a choice to do indefinite side missions, as there are some side missions that take away a timer, and once it's out you're done for the day with side missions. On Hard I think you can only do one or two, maybe three depending on your professor level.
Also, the whole social aspect, while still part of the gameplay, isn't so necessary that you need to constantly socialize with everyone. It's a good idea, and you'll be better off for it, but it doesn't really need to be as constant as it was in Awakening and Fates. A lot of my characters support relationships seem to be going up even when I'm not trying to level them up. It feels a lot less forced than in the other two games.
Especially the petting thing in Fates, that was just weird. In Three Houses they replaced that with the ability to take characters out to tea. It's definitely way more tame then the "petting" thing, especially since some of the characters aren't even super enthused about being taken to a tea party(it feels very british). There's an option to observe them if you do well during the tea party, and as I understood it, while all the characters in Fates were made to enjoy being petted as it was a way to increase support with them, many of them do not like being stared at. It can spark some rather amusing/funny dialogue.
While it is true that the first part of the game has a rather highs school feel in some cases, in other cases it feels much more like you're actually training soldiers and warriors for your army, and that feeling is enhanced in the second part of the game. Especially since you can completely customize characters to be any class(excluding gender specific and some unique classes) in the game, allowing you to customize the army you're training. Some characters excell in certain skills and are worse at other skills, but if you're really dedicated you can change that weak mage into a heavy knight or a wyvern lord, or that big beefy dude into a dancer.
So yeah, I can understand why you were super disappointed in Awakening and Fates, because while they not only doubled down on the anime stuff, they doubled down and then fed into some of the worst aspects of it. Three Houses feels like a necessary evolution, the way some anime has evolved to be better. Unless you don't like any new anime, at all.
The RNG focus of the combat can indeed be... vexing. In one of the earlier missions I accidentally overextended with a front-line fighter... I figured it would work out fine, though. I had three more attacks to fire off, each of which had a >85% chance of hitting. If even one of them hit, the danger would pass, and even if they all missed, my opponent would only have a 40% of landing the killing blow.
...all three missed, and on enemy phase, the enemy attack hit dead on. I was so infuriated I almost threw my switch at a wall.
I'm not the biggest fan of weapon durability systems in games... getting rid of it was actually one of the changes I liked most about Fates... but it hasn't really been an issue in my playthrough, either. I'm playing on hard mode, and haven't once had an issue where I had an ally run out of weapon condition mid-mission. It's annoying having to check on everyone's weapons between fights, sure, but the blacksmith system is fairly forgiving, and the game is generous with materials to replenish them.
I do enjoy the difficulty of the games. I've only been playing since the Wii one... radiant dawn, I believe it was called, but I've played all the games since "Awakening" on all difficulty settings... that said, on any difficulty, the strategy tends to not really evolve beyond "bottleneck behind your meatshield, hope to christ you don't get screwed by RNG"... and I can see why that wouldn't appeal to everyone.
As to the story... I can't comment on it much. I'm only about 30 hours into my playthrough, so I haven't even hit the first major twist yet. I do applaud the story of this game for trying to take itself seriously from minute one, though, even if it does lead to some weird tonal moments and some anime weirdness.
An issue I've always had with FE as a franchise is that it seems to be torn between what it wants to be and what it is... That doesn't make a lot of sense, let me try to explain. Take "Awakening" for example, since that's the title modern FE has been most defined by:
Awakening wants to be a very nuanced story with its fair share of moral ambiguity and contrast. In the private interactions, you learn that even hated enemies had deep-seated and complicated motives driving them, that hard lives have driven even the more noble characters to be tempted to do bad things... and all of that is nice... but the central conflict of the story is still a laughably cut-and-dry story about a big good force so compassionate they may as well be jesus incarnate, and villains who want to awaken the evil dark dragon of evilness so he can consume the world with his evil evil... The nuance implied by the character interactions isn't reinforced by the central narrative at all.
By contrast, Three Houses tries very hard to maintain its tone of moral complexity. Each of the established nations is full of scheming, with good and bad forces driving them. I espeically appreciate how the church, itself, is treated as a political faction like any other in the world, and not as the 'big good' of the story. The archbishop seemed set up to be like Emmeryn was in awakening... a character so righteous and purely good that she's just 'too good for this sinful earth', but the game establishes almost immediately that she has a cunning, perhaps even ruthless ambition behind her mannerisms that helps to make her much more engaging.
I dunno... I'll be able to comment more on the story when I've seen it all play out.
...all three missed, and on enemy phase, the enemy attack hit dead on. I was so infuriated I almost threw my switch at a wall.
I'm not the biggest fan of weapon durability systems in games... getting rid of it was actually one of the changes I liked most about Fates... but it hasn't really been an issue in my playthrough, either. I'm playing on hard mode, and haven't once had an issue where I had an ally run out of weapon condition mid-mission. It's annoying having to check on everyone's weapons between fights, sure, but the blacksmith system is fairly forgiving, and the game is generous with materials to replenish them.
I do enjoy the difficulty of the games. I've only been playing since the Wii one... radiant dawn, I believe it was called, but I've played all the games since "Awakening" on all difficulty settings... that said, on any difficulty, the strategy tends to not really evolve beyond "bottleneck behind your meatshield, hope to christ you don't get screwed by RNG"... and I can see why that wouldn't appeal to everyone.
As to the story... I can't comment on it much. I'm only about 30 hours into my playthrough, so I haven't even hit the first major twist yet. I do applaud the story of this game for trying to take itself seriously from minute one, though, even if it does lead to some weird tonal moments and some anime weirdness.
An issue I've always had with FE as a franchise is that it seems to be torn between what it wants to be and what it is... That doesn't make a lot of sense, let me try to explain. Take "Awakening" for example, since that's the title modern FE has been most defined by:
Awakening wants to be a very nuanced story with its fair share of moral ambiguity and contrast. In the private interactions, you learn that even hated enemies had deep-seated and complicated motives driving them, that hard lives have driven even the more noble characters to be tempted to do bad things... and all of that is nice... but the central conflict of the story is still a laughably cut-and-dry story about a big good force so compassionate they may as well be jesus incarnate, and villains who want to awaken the evil dark dragon of evilness so he can consume the world with his evil evil... The nuance implied by the character interactions isn't reinforced by the central narrative at all.
By contrast, Three Houses tries very hard to maintain its tone of moral complexity. Each of the established nations is full of scheming, with good and bad forces driving them. I espeically appreciate how the church, itself, is treated as a political faction like any other in the world, and not as the 'big good' of the story. The archbishop seemed set up to be like Emmeryn was in awakening... a character so righteous and purely good that she's just 'too good for this sinful earth', but the game establishes almost immediately that she has a cunning, perhaps even ruthless ambition behind her mannerisms that helps to make her much more engaging.
I dunno... I'll be able to comment more on the story when I've seen it all play out.
Is now a bad time to mention that I actually quite like Awakening? I thought it was a damn solid game. And people really do need to remember that Fire Emblem was dying before Awakening. Awakening put it from a dying series into one of Nintendo's front liners. Not on par with Mario or Zelda, but comparable to Kirby and Yoshi.soufiria said:
Ha! No, I thoroughly enjoyed Awakening myself. I never got to finish it cause my 3DS broke midway through. I need to get back and finish that one. Truth is, without the whole support system and seeing the characters interact with each other, I probably would have found it less enthralling. I'm surprised to actually hear that Awakening was the first to kind of do that. Even if the others had a story and characters with backstories, the support system, and seeing each character interact with one another made me actually see the characters as people. Without it, I probably wouldn't have been so damn determined to never want to keep characters alive save for mechanical purposes. Also the battle forecast should have been implemented from the get go I think, as it heavily reduces the RNG aspect of it that is never a good design system.erttheking said:
As for Three Houses, I would say it might be on par with the Mario and Zelda games on the switch, but I'll fully admit that could be my bias. I already beat Edalgard's route and soon as I did I immediately went for doing a new game+, which outside of a few games I don't normally do.
Most fire emblem had support system in one way or another, awakening was just the first one to have it produce children. Not quite sure what you mean by battle forecast, but most game also showed you exactly what your chance of hitting/critting were before attacking.soufiria said:
Not even the first to produce kids; Genealogy of the Holy War (a Japan-only entry on the Super Famicom) had it as a major game mechanic due to a huge plot twist halfway through the game. It's pretty much where the entire Support System startedMeiam said: