Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)

Honestly, I like the graphics way more than other people seem to. I don't have any issues with the character models and I don't care about the maps supposedly lacking detail, it's never bothered me and everything does as it's meant to. There's some pop-up sometimes around the monastery/NPCs appearing out of nowhere when they load, but I can easily ignore that.

There are so many characters that I'd be surprised if you can't find a solid few you really enjoy. They're very varied in personality and appearance, though the character writing varies from "complex and in-depth" (Edelgard, Dimitri, Rhea) to "basically one major personality trait" (Raphael, Bernadetta, Cyril). My personal favourites are Claude, Sylvain, Hilda, Lorenz, Leonie, Yuri, Manuela, Hanneman, and Raphael (sure, I listed him as an example of objectively one-note writing, but I could still write you a whole essay on this guy). I love the Golden Deer as a collective, though.

I really like the combat in this game. It's the first time I've played anything like this, and it's one of very very few games where I go out of my way to participate in fights because I want to, or where I find myself thinking "man I feel like doing some combat in that video game right now". The dialogue options outside of battle are silly, though - it's the most blatant case of "two options that are just reworded ways to say the exact same thing and get the exact same response" I've ever seen.

Multiplayer is functionally non-existent. All it is is that if you have your online mode turned on, glowing circles will appear on battlefields signifying where other players have died or killed a unit often and granting you some XP or basic items if you stand on those spots, as well as giving you stat pages in loading screens that show things like who the most popular character for players to take to tea that month or what the most frequently fed animal at the Monastery is.

Overall, this is a great game. I've played through Golden Deer 4 times so far (one for each gender of Byleth so I could S-support everyone in it, then starting over and doing the same again to refresh myself after ages of not playing), 2 runs of Blue Lions, and I'm currently finishing up my second go at Silver Snow before moving on to Edelgard's route.

Taking a half-star off because White Clouds is mind-numbingly annoying to get through if you're replaying it often like I am since it doesn't vary by route, the romantic M/M options are pretty trash (one single gay romance option in the base-game before two more were added with paid DLC, one of those being route-specific, is crazy in a game with dozen and dozens of straight ones) and for more minor issues like the dialogue options thing, but I can't justify rating it lower - I still really like it and it's definitely one of my favourite games.

After multiple failed attempts, and a few breaks here and there, I finally beat Fire Emblem Three Houses!!!!

I chose the Golden Deer, and really enjoyed their journey. I played on Casual and Normal difficulty (I want to like Classic, but permadeath stresses me out, particularly on a first playthrough)

Let's start with what I enjoyed:

The Characters: Fire Emblem as a series really excels at creating a dynamic and varied cast of characters. Some of them you will love, some you will hate, and some you will feel indifferent towards. The nice thing is with such a large cast, each with their own backstories, strengths, and weaknesses, there are characters here for everyone.

Three Houses does an amazing job with this, I completely loved some of the Golden Deer characters.

The Gameplay: I love turn based strategy games, on a grid, with characters that grow and bond as you use them, excellent! This is nothing new for Fire Emblem, but it does a good enough job polishing pre-existing stuff that it works well.

Things I thought were Mediocre:

The Story Parts of the story were riveting, while other parts just dragged! Pacing was a big hang up with the game for me, right when the story heated up I had to then grind thru a month of Monastery stuff to get to the next story beat, and usually by then the emotional return had reduced.

The story also takes a while to really heat up, but this is ok because it gives time to get to know the characters.

That said, Three Houses manages to create a pretty interesting story, with some branching moments, some shocking turns, and some really amazing cut scenes. I just wish they weren't gapped so much.

Things I Disliked:

The Monastery I think I see what they were trying to do with this bit. A big problem in past Fire Emblem games is training and leveling characters. The Monastery portion each month creates space for that, without characters dying left and right.

However, I also found these bits rather tedious. There are some interesting pieces, like weapons tournaments to win new items and money, or brilliant short interactions with characters in the Monastery; however, this is weighed down by repeated boring tasks like fishing, looking for junk left around, cooking, ect.

I think using the Monastery sparingly would have made it more enjoyable, it was nice early on when I was getting to know the cast, but particularly after the time gap it felt really odd to go from a tense battle, with important advancement of the story, only to teleport back to a month of fishing, cooking, and teaching.

I ended up auto instructing and resting for the last several months, just to get to the end missions as quickly as possible.

Conclusion Overall, despite some complaints about the pacing, I really enjoyed Three Houses. The moments after the time skip I found particularly fun, blazing through them. Seeing how the characters developed and changed over 5 years, and having missions suitably tense and challenging was really fun.

I really found myself by the end of the game wanting to play one of the other houses (which I am sure was a purposeful design choice). If/When I renter this game, I will be upping the difficulty, and Casual on Normal was rather by the end.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a fantastic addition to the NIntendo Switch library and to the Fire Emblem series as a whole. Whilst it does not replace Fire Emblem: Awakening as my favourite in the series, this was still a brilliant turn based strategy game and has become one of my favourite games for the Switch.

In the game you play as a Byleth, a mercenary who quickly gets a job as a teacher at Garreg Mach Monastery. Whilst at the monastery, Byleth must prepare their students as leaders and soldiers, whilst also trying to protect the school and residents from a group of mysterious antagonists. I will say that the plot for Three Houses does not have the same epic feel to it that Awakening did. Still, I did like the fact that the story changed, depending on which of the three houses of students you decided to teach.

From a gameplay perspective, if you have played a Fire Emblem before then you know what to expect, when it comes to the battles. These are turn based and different soldier types are effective against different enemies. Like with previous Fire Emblem games, you can choose the classic difficulty of permadeath for your characters or the more lenient option of having them temporarily removed when they are knocked out. The new additions that Three Houses brings to the battles are the inclusion of Battlions- these are groups of soldiers that when assigned to a hero, gives that hero a special ability. Then there is also Divine Pulse, a special ability that effectively allows you to rewind time, by a small number of turns, in order to try a different strategy. I'll be honest, I didn't really use these new features that much, as I prefered the more traditional Fire Emblem combat mechanics.

However, the battles are not the whole game. Half of your time will be spent mentoring your students by teaching classes, holding seminars and an assortment of other side activities. This part of the game is where you can manage what roles your students master, as well as strengthen your bond with them. This period in between the battles was always a nice welcome change of pace, that gave me the time to organise my forces and as well as focus on the story aspect of the game.

Overall, I highly recommend Fire Emblem: Three Houses. With approximately fifty hours for each House's story, you are definitely getting value for money. The game takes the Fire Emblem formula and delivers an experience that will please most Fire Emblem fans.

I am not sure whether I should be writing a review of this game now, given that I've only finished one story route and it may even be the least complete one. I choose the Black Eagle house , and when faced with the decision, I opted to join Edelgard and fight against the church. I think this piece of information is relevant to how I experience the game and thus, I am mentioning it. This story route leaves a lot of questions behind. Questions I am unsure if would be answered if I go for another route.

I did do a quick search in the internet for answers, fearing that I might have just missed some things when I was playing. I discovered that the other story paths have more chapters, which was surprising. I did not spend much time on this research as I did not want to spoil myself. I am determined to play the game once more but I'll do that after I play another JRPG. My first playthrough already took a lot of time, and right now, I want something different.

I'm taking a break from this game not because I did not enjoy it. I thoroughly enjoyed a lot of its parts. I've liked tile-based combat ever since I played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I enjoy fiddling with job systems big time. Having the freedom to prioritize skill goals and then gain new abilities from training are so endearing. The events are real interesting too, and I have been entranced by the world and its history several times.

As with most things, there are also bits I'm not quite fond of. At the top of my list is tea time. It just takes too much effort for me for not so great returns. I know that I don't have to do it but I'm also not just sending flowers to someone when it's their birthday and they just live a few steps away from me when I have the option to do more. Still, I tried to avoid it as much as I can. I dread everyone's birthday now. The restriction on the classes one could pursue based on their gender is not an ideal setup. It seems to me that you can't get the whole picture from one playthrough too. Perhaps this is just a consequence of my actions. This bit really escapes me. I appreciate having different events unfold from choosing different story routes but I think it would have been better to provide clarity for all the details mentioned in one route on that route. What's very unclear to me really is Dimitri blaming Edelgard for the Tragedy of Duscur. Why? What even happened there exactly? How the battle against those who slither in the dark is treated in this route could also use some improvement.

One thing I would have actually wanted is for you not to be able to recruit students from other houses. I think it's more fun that way. You don't get the pressure from trying to recruit everyone and molding them into upstanding adults later. Maybe that would have forced me to use units that I normally don't (i.e. the non-students). Again, I know I don't have to recruit everyone but I wanted to unlock all available paralogues. I was initially unaware that I could get pair endings as well, and I'm kinda regretting not working enough to put everyone's support level to maximum and to set up who ends up with whom at the story's end better. Doing so would have taken a lot of time if you've recruited everyone.

Perhaps I have been playing it for too long or maybe because I took some long breaks in between sessions but I got demotivated picking the game up after some time. I keep on thinking about the checkpoints I've set up for myself before progressing the story. In the end, I did not succeed fulfilling all my self-set goals, most of which are support level related, because I just really wanted to finish the game.

I really like the story though. I did not see some of the twists coming. Edelgard being the Flame Emperor was a surprise, and I still am not sure what I think of that arrangement. I did not immediately get that Rhea is Seiros, and I just kept wondering for a long time what that cut scene with Rhea in the beginning was all about. I had to consult the internet for some details but again I'm not sure whether it was because of how it was explained or if I just did not get it. I was confused about Nemesis and the actual reason for his fight with Seiros, and who Rhea's referring to as her mother, which to be honest I still am not a hundred percent sure if I got right. I may appreciate it more once I actually figure out what exactly happened. Needless to say, I am curious.

My idea of a five star game is something that I wanted to play again after I just finished playing it. This was what happened when I played Fire Emblem: Awakening. After finishing the main storyline of Awakening, I was just itching for more. I still want to play more of Three Houses but for totally different reasons. I just want clarity, and I'm hoping I could get that from another house, which is sad because I really like the Black Eagle house. If I were enrolled in Garreg Mach, I totally would want to be part of that house. In reality, I probably would have been in the Golden Deer house and have had crushes on the Blue Lion students. I was really excited for this game, and I did not find it disappointing. After another playthrough, I might even increase my rating.

I used to think I loved fire emblem as a series. I think maybe it was just that I happened to play the best ones first. The more I play of this series I realize I only like specific fire emblem games. This one is fine, it starts out with a lot of promise but about halfway through I started to suspect all the interesting plotlines weren't going to culminate into anything worthwhile. Gone are the interesting and intersecting plots of Valentia, replaced with the worst kind of padding and incentives to replay a game already bloated to 3 times the amount of content it can support for a single route alone. 40 hours in i finally reached the timeskip (the halfway mark) and that broke me. I gave up everything, I skipped cutscenes, I avoided side missions. I passed on exploring, desperate to just be done with this monster that had consumed all my gaming with it's pointless padding.

The reason I've rated it as high as I have is the actual battles are still fairly fun, it's just like a burger that's had 7 layers of pink goop filling stuffed into it. Somewhere at the core is still a good meal but it's so lost in unforgivable padding that I can't remember anything but the bitter aftertaste it leaves in my mouth. I know looking at my updates I ONCE had fun with this game, so I'll leave it at a 3 star but right now I think I might finally give up on fire emblem all together. In the past 10 years I've actually enjoyed 2 of the games... And while those games were so good they leave me longing for more of the same I've been burned too many times to believe the next product from this series will be worth my time.

I just don't have the time I used to to wade through mediocrity hoping this series will one day live up to the heights I know it is capable of. Plenty of other games can disappoint me for much cheaper and for a lot less of my time.

Hmmm... where to begin. Although it's poor writing, I may have to express how I feel in a bulleted list of pros and cons. First, the good:

• The combat is exceptionally engaging and the possibilities really do feel endless, by my second playthrough I was looking forward more to planning my lessons than to the battling itself.
• The character design, for the most part, is wonderful. We finally have a plethora of female characters who are fully fleshed out again, something that was missing from the sea of big titty witches and fuckable children in Awakening and Fates.
• The choice-based aspect is meted out in the right doses, each path feels unique and different, without acting like our choices will make or break the game.
• Battalions are a great addition, the changes to magic are interesting, and the Monastery is a lot of fun. In short, the new elements felt like good ideas, not newness for the sake of newness.

The one, big bad for me:

• Why the hell do we get so few answers.

It feels a little cheap to give us FOUR (despite advertising) separate plots and end with so much of our lore unexplored and our loose ends untied. I know that DLC has already been announced promising answers, answers, and so much more answers, but a complete narrative would have been even better. My hopes are that another title is made in this world before we move on to the next, and that the worlds beyond Fodlan are explored. Fire Emblem has thrived in recent years, but the worlds it's contained within have fallen short of my expectation post-Radiant Dawn. All things considered, I know that the amount of times I play through Three Houses will well exceed 10, 20, and maybe more. The New Game+ makes this a title worth revisiting again and again, in doses both small and large.

I finished playing this a while ago but I had to leave a review because it is my favorite game so far this year.

If you are unfamiliar, this is tactical JRPG where you play a mercenary hired on as a professor at a military academy. You must choose which house of students to serve and lead them on a mission each month. It quickly becomes apparent that trouble is brewing, and not everything is as it seems. In the meantime, you spend your resources training students and yourself, developing relationships, improving the academy, and completing side quests.

Sound like a lot to do? Good! That's why this game is amazing. It is essentially 4 games in one since each route provides a different story. I also really enjoyed the fact that tactical elements of the game came through outside of battle, as you must decide how to spend your limited time and resources throughout the month as well. It's a game with so many myriad elements that come together and make something great, with high replayability to boot.

If you're new to the series, this is a great one to start with. It's only my second game, but I felt like it was less complicated and more fun compared to the first. If you're a veteran to the series, I hope you've already picked this up. I promise you'll enjoy it.

Echoing the feeling of at least one other Grouvee member the first half is magnificent but the second half is extremely underwhelming, both from a story and a gameplay perspective. I should have expected this though as this is not the first Fire Emblem where the story starts off strong but in the end boils down to nothing. I even spent an hour reading up on all the different endings, but it seems like there is little to no nuance in the story from the different house's point of view (I played the Empire route of the Black Eagles for the record).

Other than the story the gameplay is in theory solid, just too bad that normal difficulty is ridiculously easy, and there is no way to change it to hard after you have started. I played normal/classic for the record, but I would recommend anyone starting it should probably play hard/casual if you are new, and hard/classic if you have played other games in the tactics genre.

Finally I am very happy that the ditched the dating sim aspects of the previous instalment. There is still a romance option at the very end but it's not like you are dating/matchmaking during, it just a nice bonus at the very end, which to me was perfect. Although FE is a fairly character heavy series, making it a dating sim was going a bit too far.

So difficult to give this a rating. I'd rate the first half of the game (plus a chapter or two) 5/5, but the second half maybe 3/5.

Overall the game was a nice surprise. It's been a long time since I found a JRPG that could keep my interest (Lost Odyssey was the most recent). I'm not a fan of anime, I prefer any console over Switch... but this game was a delight. Once I got over the vacant anime faces I grew to really love some of the characters - Raphael's focus on eating and muscles, Claude's mischievousness, Hilda's overwhelming competence despite her insistence she wasn't good at things. Wandering around the monastery building up support was fun, shaping each characters skills was rewarding, and though it was a bit too easy the tactical combat was enjoyable and full of great animations.

Sadly, the second half of the game seemed to forget that players would want something to do between battles. The timeline between major events could have been compressed considerably to keep things interesting. And the story... meh. It's definitely more a game about the characters than the overarching plot.

I was originally thinking I'd want to play again as another house (I went Golden Deer), but I don't really want to play the second half again. Maybe in a few years.