Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)

Over the years, I tried 5 different Fire Emblems across 4 different consoles, hoping to get into the series and always bouncing off them for various reasons. With this latest installment, I finally found the one to grab me.

This is not a 10/10 game, but nonetheless I had a great experience playing it. A few reasons why:

• The gameplay on Normal with permadeath turned off was a challenge, yet felt extremely accessible and never too punishing. By far the most approachable any strategy game has felt to me.
• Characters are really entertaining, with standout designs and personal stories that, while cliché at times, mostly ended up worthwhile. I grew quite attached to some characters through their personal and gameplay development.
• The game’s pace is excellent, always allowing you to choose what you want to do and leaving long breaks between tough encounters. The month-by-month structure makes the game impossible to put down.
• The job system and progression of characters are handled really well, just flexible enough to let you shape your party how you want it. I loved tinkering with it.

A few things I’m mixed on:

• Presentation can be hit-or-miss, with lots of awkward animations and cutscenes, as well as jarring sound effects and things that can derail serious moments.
• Voice acting can occasionally be kinda cringe in that anime type of way where they don’t talk like real people. I think I would have preferred a slightly more grounded direction for a story that gets so serious.
• Some of the systems driving interpersonal relationships are kind of ridiculous, especially the tea party minigame. Recruiting of other houses’ students being gated behind Byleth’s stats feels pretty dumb.
• Choosing how you spend each day is great, yet a bit too restrictive. I should be able to do, say, just one battle then various social activities, but I have to pick one or the other even when I have enough Activity points.

The main theme of the game, to spend half of the game building up a friendly rivalry between houses only to break out into actual war is really compelling, even though I think that allowing more onscreen mingling between houses in Act 1 would have made it more emotionally resonant. I was satisfied with my ending, in which I ended the church’s rule over the nations and spent the rest of my life with the Empress in a nice mutual respect type of relationship. It was a super fun time that was easy to binge and makes me interested to give more of the games a shot soon.

As many other switch games, FE3H as a lot of great ideas but overall it doesn't really stands out compared to Awakening which is disappointing for a console game.

Gameplay is great, there are some great characters and the school gimmick is neat but the endings feel rushed, the story doesn't go anywhere (it seems to be common to all routes) and the visuals are "meh" at best

I had a great time but I expected more from a game released 2 years after P5 that takes so much from it.

Fire Emblem Three Houses is a charming title that really keeps you hooked till the end! The characters really grow on you - especially Bernadetta whos' my spirit animal.

It's in the smaller things around the monastery that really brings the charm to the game. Fishing, of course, gardening, having meals with your students and really getting to know them. You realize the importance of these when they become beasts on the battlefield.

Advice - Make sure you go for as many battles on your free day as possible. You don't wanna miss out on the extra gold/loot.