Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Just like the title says: this game was voted by gamers as Best Game of the Year. Not the critics, the PLAYERS voted for it so, yeah, it wasn't an award they bought. From what I understand, this is the first Fire Emblem title to hit it big anywhere outside of Japan and, having played it, I'm glad the devs got some recognition. At first glance (or first couple hours of play time) the game seems straightforward enough. It's a turn based RPG. Pretty much 'nough said in most cases. You either like them or you don't. But. When you're "released" from the normal and necessary exposition and tutorial that always comes with starting an RPG, and you can wander around you meet all the usual characters. Of course you do. It's an RPG. Yeah, this time the premise seems interesting and the "downtime" activities might be a little unusual-- voice acting is certainly a solid notch above what you usually get in an RPG but it's still an RPG though. I mean, you even have the standard archtypes (if quite a few more than usual): the jock, the socially awkward girl, medieval cheerleaders, geek with the glasses in the back.... They're all there. At least, that's how it STARTS... As you start playing though, between managing inventory, leveling, combat, and, of course, unraveling the main plot etc, etc, etc-- something starts to happen. The One Dimensional archtypes that you've written off actually start taking on... well, DEPTH. And the STORY actually starts getting interesting too!!!! I won't front, it had been SO LONG since I had seen this level of good writing that I had honestly forgotten that it was even possible in an RPG. And the acting is just... WOW. Ok. Yeah. Graphics won't make you weep at the beauty and magesty of realistic 4k as you count the individual hairs on the back of your character's head but... that story and that acting more than make up for it. First off you canNOT hope to get through everything on just one playthrough. Forget multiple ENDINGS, this game has MULTIPLE PLOTS. No joke. The WHOLE STORY is different depending on what you pick in the first few hours. Now, you want multiple endings? OMFG!!! Apparently, after spending do NOT tell me how many hours with these characters, the game actually generates a little ending for each and every single character you have gotten to know based on what YOU were doing during your playthrough. Computer-wise, it probably didn't take that long but the writing chops to go through and figure out what would happen to every single possible pairing of 40 characters and never miss a single beat... Wow. Just. Wow. You have REALLY got to have a definitive idea of who these characters are in your head and remain true to that idea in order to do that- I mean, Hollywood has a hard time doing that with less than FIVE over 90 minutes a lotta times. So, yeah, hat's off there. Lol. So, the writing and the acting rocks but, this is a GAME, how's that gameplay, you're asking... I haven't had this much fun with a turned based in a long, long time. The loads of menus IS a little intimidating at first but it's honestly not that difficult to get the hang of things. Tiny touches and flourishes make things both a little easier to pick up and a little rewarding as you do. I love the real time prediction mechanic that shows you how much damage a character can make to an enemy and how much damage they can do back so you can experiment a bit BEFORE you confirm a command. Another nice touch is the little action cutscenes when an attack is made. You CAN turn them off if you want but I left them on because they actually seemed to add a little more drama to the fights. Now, I will admit that this game is a Completionist's NIGHTMARE. Because of all of the different characters and all of the different details and all of the different plots. I tried to do my normal grinding for levels, etc but eventually learned that that's NOT how you're supposed to play this game. You're supposed to just play the game and pretty much let the cards fall where they may when it comes to the details. And that is how I recommend playing it. Also, folks who gots ta has their eye-candy and/or looove that space bar when it comes to playing on the computer (skip cut scenes alot) will NOT find any fun here. Nor is this a good game for action junkies. Y'all got Devil May Cry, etc for that. Go enjoy Astral Chain. Great game too and far more enjoyable for button mashing. You want to wander through a great story with interesting characters and excellent acting though? Yeah. Stop debating, just hit that buy button and-- well, cancel any future plans you got for the next few months. U gon b buzy. :D

As always, straight to the scores: Graphics quality: 9/10. Almost every game that releases is capable of looking better, and FE3H is no exception. However, whether it is the animated cutscenes, traversing the monastery, or engaging in large-scale tactical battles, FE3H looks great for a game on Switch. I genuinely believe this is one of the reasons the game pulled me in so quickly, and I am so happy to see that time was taken to ensure the game looks as good as it does. Animation: 9/10. Again, same thing. Beautiful. I was very happy to see things that were not previously animated, being animated. The best way I can describe this is that there are smaller things you will notice from time to time that you never thought would make a difference - like the fact that there is no longer an animation for "entering" an attack. Those things make a difference. All of the difference. Story: 9/10. "Harry Potter" is not an accurate description of this game's story, because the only thing FE3H shares with Harry Potter is a House system. House systems are a tradition of England's schooling dating back hundreds of years. If anything, FE3H is historically accurate. And I am really disappointed that some of my fellow Fire Emblem veterans have simply dismissed the game for this reason, because the nuance of the story is something I really appreciate as opposed to many of FE's former titles. I won't tell you what to do, but in short, I do not believe you can actually "play" the game and walk away thinking it is like Harry Potter, so if I were you, I would strongly disregard anyone who brings that view to the table. Characters: 10/10. Characters in this game are excellent. Dialog is snappy, and time spent with students really draws you into the world and its story. If you do not spend time with these characters, you will be missing a HUGE part of the game. Take the time to individually "instruct" them when the time comes and you will see that you care a lot about your students and their progress. You will definitely be invested in them and their lives. Customization: 10/10. Your students progress is the foundation for FE3H customization options. Every single student has the ability to become so many different classes. It is your responsibility to see to it that they achieve their goals, true. But it is also your responsibility to ensure they try new things. If you do, you will find that some characters have a knack for classes they had no interest in - just like real life. This is a really fun part of the game that I think a lot of people are overlooking, so take your time with it. Gameplay: 10/10. Honestly, FE3H feels as great as FE always has. They brought back weapon durability, which adds some busy work, in my opinion, but the classic battle system is there with just a few more layers to keep veterans interested. And its great! I also think the battle-to-schooling ratio is perfect, making battles feel more intense and more important then previous titles. Voice-acting quality: 10/10. This entire game is voice acted. This ENTIRE game. I love the voices involved and I am really happy with all of the casting choices. I recognize many of the names, but generally the voices are a "good fit" for the characters you are speaking with. Music: 8/10. The music is well implemented. There some interesting decisions with sound design in the battles that I think I just need to play more to understand, but it seems like the music shifts depending on what is occurring, which is cool. None of the tracks stand out to me so far though, which is a shame. "You are the ocean's gray waves" comes into my mind every so often, and I miss that. Price of game: 10/10. No MTX BS, no content cut before launch just to sell as DLC. Just a really great game for $60. Extrinsic positive/negatives: +0/-1 points for auto advance/auto-scroll during conversations not being as tight as it should be. This may seem like a minor nitpick to some, but when the story and the characters are this good, I just want to enjoy them like a movie, not continuously click after their lines are delivered. Average score: 9.3/10. I got the game a day early and said, "oh wth, I will just play an hour or two." I had planned to play considerably the next day, but since it came a day early, why not, right? Well, I ended up playing for five or six hours and I did not realize it. Because I was just having fun. Having said that, I am only about eight hours in now, so I will be returning to update this review as I play through the rest of the game. I hope this review helps you make an informed decision.

My first fire emblem game I’ve played and I’m so glad I picked it up, it’s awesome. It reminded me a lot of persona 5 with the calendar and the method of increasing support friendships through gifts and hangouts. Plus the story for whatever reason really resonates on a soul level that I can’t really explain. Many times I found myself getting chills and having what I can only describe as a familiar fleeting sensation or feeling of timelessness, I can’t really put it into words. Strange I know. On another note I feel it has great replay value. I started first as the Golden Deer and I now plan to go back and replay both of the other houses. Apparently the Black Eagles route has two paths, so there’s even more to explore. It’s unique, fun and it’s own niche game all at the same time. Highly recommended and in my opinion a must play if you own the switch. If you enjoy RPG’s, and or turned based combat, it’s one of the best out there hands down. For those curious, my first play through took me roughly 65-70 hours. Although you could probably finish in 50 or less if you’re not a through explorer/completionist. Enjoy this one!

I played Fire Emblem: Three Houses for 38 hours after only 3 days of it being released. Yes, you read that right. I spent on average 12.67 hours/day over 3 days. Needless to say, I LOVE this game. There are 3 routes (4 if you count a shorter, secret route) that are about the same length. It took me 44 hours of playing at what I consider to be an average speed to beat one of the routes on hard difficulty. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you'll be getting many hours out of this game if you enjoy it. For anyone who has played any Fire Emblem games in the past, you might be skeptical to hear that this game changes up the formula in more ways than one. For example, the weapon triangle (swords > axes > lances > swords) was removed and magic tomes aren't items anymore (they're more like skills with charges now). Do NOT be dissuaded by these changes because they ultimately improve the gameplay experience. For newcomers to the Fire Emblem franchise, this is a great entry to start with. Compared to the previous titles, Three Houses definitely feels much easier. Not only are enemies not as strong, but new mechanics such as Divine Pulse, which lets you turn back time to fix mistakes, were added. To conclude, there are tons of dialogue in Three Houses and ALL of them are voice acted by very capable voice actors. Rather than moving on to the next text box after I finished reading, I found myself letting the text auto-advance so I could appreciate the voice acting. It absolutely blows my mind how Fire Emblem went from mostly having grunting noises and short phrases such as "yes" to this masterfully voice acted game. TL;DR: Buy this game.

I logged 91 hours only on Blue Lions route, and I will definitely be going back to do Claude & Edelgard's route. FE3H is a full complete game without hidden story DLC for your to buy on release. Good bang for your buck. FE3H is very much an amalgamation of all the Fire Emblem game that came before; it has the ambitious story scope and character roster of Fates, some maps are challenging akin to Radiant Dawn, great detailed world-building. But it stands alone unique and on its own merit, not a mere copy-paste. ============================================================================================= +++ Pros +++ + Story: it is full of intrigue and hidden depths especially when you build supports from various students and faculty. You can just skim through the main story, but the details in the profiles and interactions between characters greatly adds to worldbuilding and understanding of the overall story. One playthrough will not be enough to understand what is happening in Fodlan. The story is gripping and sucks you in. + Unit customization: FE3H maybe the most customizable FE game yet in terms of class, abilities, and weapons (rank and type). While Fates does have relatively more, but I thought FE3H balances it quite well. The game makes it much easier to have certain units catch up to a certain rank for them to class in something to be effective like you want them to. + Big Maps (but not too big): the maps and how the battles are set up are quite interesting. While many of them are "defeat all enemy commanders", there are couple of maps with sub-objectives that gives bonus at the end. Although I had a hard time navigating on the zoomed-in-on-the-ground view, I appreciate the feature of seeing units as if they are truly on the battlefield. The perspective adds to the huge scope. It is a nice feature albeit it cuts into the frame rate. + Characters: while a couple do follow some of the trope you see in anime and previous FE, there are nuances added to give them some depth. But that depends on how much supports (not just protagonist's) you are willing to put in the work. There are various ways within the game to get those support points, not just on the battlefield. Choir practice, dining hall, group goals. Find ways to pair them together and build support points. + Art and art direction: I especially liked the art work from when the chapters begin. The style is so much different from previous FE titles. It looks straight out of a medieval history book. Or it has that style. + Battle system: FE3H took out the weapon triangle, but has the weapon durability. Battle system is in similar veins as Shadows of Valentia, and I'm not complaining. It's fun to play. Gambit is the new feature, and it's different. For one, it gives more customizability to a unit, and having battalions on a battlefield, makes the map more of a battlefield like FE has us to believe. It took some getting used to, but can be an effective tool. + Voice Acting: everything (except protagonist) is voiced. EVERYTHING. English AND Japanese. Wow. And the acting is fantastic. I played with dubbed voice cast the first time, and I had a blast being with these characters. --- Cons --- - Small texts on the big screen: the texts are so tiny on my TV and I could not find an option to change the font size. It was so frustrating. - Drains Switch's battery: fiddle with brightness to save the battery or carry the charger with you. - Lip flaps: talking audio and lip flats doesn't match. I got used to it, but it was jarring the first time. - Cutscenes, or its style: I thought there was relatively more smoothness compared to how it was in Valentia. But there's certain edge and sharpness to the animation. Personally, I am not a hug fan of such a style especially in tender moments, but it works well during action sequences. ============================================================================================= There's no another blue-haired Lord character. So, that's a big change already. There were a couple of story beats that had me scratching my head like troops traveling too fast, too easily across the continent without opposition or monsters. Or how the protagonist has too much special-ness like Corrin from Fates where everyone likes him or her out the gate. Overall, I really like the game and recommend it to those who like FE or strategy games. Even to those who like Visual Novels because FE3H has those elements as well. There is a casual mode and time-undo feature (Divine Pulse) to redo certain moves. The game balances out difficulty for both veterans and newcomers. FE3H has a lot of replay value. Highly recommended.

This was my first game in the Fire Emblem series and it made me want to seek out the other ones! It’s a turn-based RPG with user-friendly controls for the casual gamer and advanced difficulty settings for the more experienced players. The biggest appeal of the gameplay is strategy. You are a teacher at an officer’s academy and your job is to teach your students combat skills for use on the battlefield. In true RPG fashion, you and your students level-up throughout the game and you can recruit students from other houses as you gain more skills and experience. It’s very satisfying to watch them develop their skills to higher levels and wipe out enemies! As for the storyline, you are a former mercenary who is now a teacher. Early in the game, you are asked to choose one of three ‘houses’ of student’s to instruct. The plot varies depending on which house you choose but part 1 of the story is mostly the same. No matter which house you choose, you can recruit almost all of the playable characters to your house except for the three house leaders and their retainers. My opinions on all three: Golden Deer- Claude is the best house leader, lots of great archers In this house, Lysithea is the best mage in the game. Blue Lions- Best storyline of the three, Dedue is the best retainer, lots of good cavalry and flyers in this house. Black Eagles- most interesting assortment of characters, lots of powerful mages in this house. Without any spoilers, I will give you the heads-up that if you pick Black Eagles, you’ll be making a crucial decision around Chapter 11 that will affect the storyline but it’s the only house where this happens. Every character in the game has their own dialogue read by a distinct voice actor. They build support during cut scenes and some of the characters form strong friendships while others fall in love and might even marry at the end! The stronger their bonds, the more effective their attacks when they fight together. I give it four out of five stars only because there is practically no diversity among the cast of characters. They are almost entirely Caucasian. This game was made in 2019, which means that you’d expect a more diverse cast of characters. However, the storyline does address some relevant issues such as xenophobia, religious hypocrisy, and the moral ambiguity of war. Stylistically it’s very anime. The characters have a slick hand-drawn quality to them as though you are interacting with a cartoon and not just a game. When you explore the monastery as Byleth, it feels a little bit like Breath of the Wild but you can’t roam as freely or interact with your environment as much. There’s no climbing or swimming or any of that stuff. Explore mode is easy no matter what difficulty you play. There are all kinds of side-quests and items you can obtain when you explore. You’ll also find all of your students’ missing items and they’ll like you more when you return them. But mostly you’ll use it just to level-up your characters and build support between them. There is a DLC for this game called “Cindered Shadows”. It’s significantly more challenging than the main storyline even on easy mode. Plus you get new playable characters, new classes that combine magic with cavalry or flyers, and other perks like more costumes for your characters. I recommend it if you like the main game a lot. Expect a few hundred hours of gameplay out of Three Houses, especially if you want to do all three routes. I recommend you start on normal-casual mode and increase the difficulty with each play-through. Hard mode isn’t really that hard but maddening mode will give you a real challenge! If you play casual your characters won’t die when they fall in battle but in classic mode they’re gone forever. It’s a decision you make pretty early in the game so it’s worth considering before you play. TLDR- great RPG, Interesting characters but not much diversity, adjustable difficulty settings to suit casual or more experienced gamers.

I have already 110 hours in this game and its very well deserved. I wont claim its a masterpiece but I will say compare to the other Fire Emblem games this is has been the most enjoyable in a lot of areas. Specifically in the replayability department and story along with length. I have nothing but good things to say about this game and as much I love it there are some flaws which could turn off some type of players. The game is miles away from what Fire Emblem use to be in terms of how it plays and progresses. Everything has been change but as scared as I was to find out how much it changed, cant say Im disappointed. The story still has the Fire Emblem flare to it, in fact it I feel what has been done is mainly adding more depth to the game as whole and characters and even going as far as making 3 seperate stories that all play differently. Absolutely breathtaking :D There are some cons that I wish were handled better but also some that come with the changes. -Classes definitely lost a lot of their uniqueness due to being accessible to everyone. But now you can have a team full of only mages if your intention is to turn the game into Hogwarts haha. -There are a lot of technical issues but never crash nor cause any huge inconvenience most were just graphic issues I experienced. -Graphically the game isnt that impressive but thats been a problem since the change to 3D. -The roaming in the game becomes tiresome and pointless at a certain point but I appreciate the feature and I have a feeling next installment will have this greatly improved. - Lastly the animations dont really pack a punch and as much as previous series before Shadows of Valentia,, past entries had really great animation for characters that really gave characters personality in the battlefield. In this game you dont really notice it Pros - It's by far the longest Fire Emblem game I played even if you skip the roaming and instructions.. theres just so much more to the game now then heading to mission and starting it. Doing Paralogues and so forth.. the game is fantastic in the replayability field and even game length. -Characters have soooo much more personality and you know who is who and hard to really mix them up.. They feel like part of the story and feel genuinely interesting. I had more fun watching through the supports event scenes opposed to playing the game. -Weapon durability is back and Magic doesnt cost health nor are they items so it wont waste space in inventory which was a problem in Awakening. -Although the weapon triangle is gone theres is a new aspect to the game that I like and that is weapon skills have more personality and allows more diversity in what you want to use and who you should use. -No corrin... or lucina.. or forced story elements like kids appearing out of nowhere. Instead you get to see your students grown up which is so nice and I really hope this will be more expanded upon in next entries. -too many pros to list.. Im a die hard Fire Emblem fan and I really thought this one was going to suck but Im so glad Im wrong.. and honestly impressed and I cant recommended enough specially if you never tried a tactical RPG style game,, this one has anime written all over it to with visual novel like so it has something for everyone.. only people I can see disliking this game.. is Someone who utterly despises anime and turn rpg games in general which i dont know why they would even consider this game but maybe it does chane your mind.

UPDATE: After beating the game on Normal (Classic) mode the first time around, then starting a New+ game on Maddening mode...I've sunk over 200 hours into this game so far! Talk about replay value. Planning to play through one more time on regular Maddening mode & purchasing the DLC. Love the experience of leveling up characters and tactically planning out battles. UPDATED UPDATE: I’ve now logged over 500 hours on this game 😅 I just love the characters and replaying the game with different builds and rules (planning an all female run with Black Eagles next). Maddening is so challenging, it requires a lot of planning...and death. ------------------------------ I was originally concerned that there might be too much time spent at the academy and not enough time battling... the academy is turning out to be my favorite part. It’s like playing a sports game in franchise mode and choosing how to power up your team during the season. You’re rewarded during battle. It’s so much fun. My only other experience with FE was with Radiant Dawn for the Wii. Three Houses is on a whole other level in terms of character development and story. Favorite game for the Switch. One of my favorite games of all-time.