Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (2022)

Near the end of one route, and I like how streamlined some things are here compared to Three Houses. It somehow seems easier for Shez to increase support points with the other characters. The gameplay has also been trimmed down, and I like that - no lost items, confession box, and fishing. Even the replacement for tea parties, the expeditions, is less stressful. (I have a vague memory that tea parties put a time pressure on you for your dialogue responses.) I found Three Houses a bit overloaded because of everything it has going on so I welcome this change. Story exposition here is not well fleshed out though.

Still enjoying this game. My priorities have somehow shifted after more than 10 chapters of playthrough. I noticed that I can achieve S rank in battles in normal difficulty if I just pay attention to the requirements so I don't try too hard in maximizing training session progress anymore. Now, I lean more into choosing partnerships based on support conversation availability and my interest in the dynamics between the involved characters. I hope I still have enough time to increase support points between some intriguing pairs.

Thought I was already in part 2 but apparently I just got there today. The division here seems less stark than Three Houses. Initially had the idea then of pausing playing here for a while to focus on some work stuff, but I think I don't want to be that person anymore so I'm going to try juggling all my pursuits this time around.

I’ve been surrounded by a lot of medieval fantasy lately so I thought this might be a good companion for that. I loved Three Houses so I’m already sold just from having the same characters and setting. I chose the same house again - Black Eagles - although I am a bit of second-guessing that choice now. Perhaps it would have been refreshing to join a different house. I’m still learning the controls (and all the multiple bars on the screen for your character) and mechanics, and I don’t know if this is usual for games of this type, but there’s so much to learn here. Don’t know if I can finish this before the Persona 5 release so I just hope I’m not biting more than I can chew.

From the demo this seems to be a pretty polished game, and it’s definitely bringing back my memories of Three Houses. I don’t really like this kind of musou action from a mission and combat design perspective, so it’s a bit unfortunate for me that the biggest budget spinoffs of games I do love like Three Houses, Breath of the Wild, and Persona 5 have been in that style. I assume these things do pretty well commercially, but they don’t feel like something a majority of fans of those games would actually want… Anyway I don’t know if I’ll get the full game or not. It’s decent enough fun, and I like seeing the old characters again, though the new characters are not that appealing. Probably won’t shell out $60, but it doesn’t seem bad.

I've always been happy with how I manage to stop myself from buying books before I finish my current stack of unread books but recently, I've been slipping and purchasing new ones even though I still haven't gone through my current hoard. This behavior is seeping to other purchases as well as I'm pretty sure I'll be preordering this game even though I still haven't finished the long game I've been playing (I'm not even playing as of the moment due to an approaching due date) and I just purchased another long game to make use of an expiring voucher. Oh well, I loved Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and I feel really excited about this game so uhm I'm loosening it up a bit.