Board 8 > First Fire Emblem: Three Houses review

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well they call it a preview, but it reads very much like a full review. I guess the difference could be they only finished one of the three storylines and their full review will cover all three? I guess it also doesn't talk much about battles themselves, so that could be something for the full review too. Anyway, it was taken down shortly after being posted (jt's by Engadget), but someone on Resetera managed to get screenshots.

https://imgur.com/a/9YAdimg

It's a pretty positive review! Best news is that it confirms New Game+, but doesn't say what transfers over. Hopefully Byleth's teacher levels, so you can get more options for unit customization right off the bat in future playthroughs. It also makes it sound like the school stuff only takes up a quarter of the entire game (assuming that's what they mean by major shake up ~10 hours in). I was expecting more like 50/50, but I suppose it would depend on how much time you take exploring and talking to people (and if teacher levels do carry over into NG+, you'd be spending more time at the school in successive runs).

The newest article from Famitsu is also out and translated on Serenes Forest for anyone interested. I haven't read these since I feel like I know enough already that I want to just discover the rest while playing, but apparently this game has a ton of lore and side reading. Like you can go to the library and read history books or visit the dormitories to read all the students' journals.

https://serenesforest.net/2019/07/10/three-houses-famitsu-5th-article-demonic-beasts-monastery-loose-ends/
https://serenesforest.net/2019/07/11/three-houses-famitsu-5th-article-follow-better-screenshots-library-texts/
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I normally am not interested in Fire Emblem or Tactics RPGs, but throwing in elements made famous by Persona has me all sorts of excited and onboard for this game. Hopefully they're not completely abandoned once the school phase is over.
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Yeah I still don't really know anything about how stuff is handled after the timeskip.
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Sounds cool. Though it makes me a little worried that the Stuff to do : Activity point ratio might be a bit too high the way he made it sound. But I've been worried about that for a while.

i want to do all the things
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I'm gonna lose so many hours of my life to this game.
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I really should get to those 3DS games one day
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This, uh, doesn't sound like a game I want, but I'm glad the reception is positive so far.
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If you don't care about the Persona-esque calendar stuff, you can apparently automate the teaching and stuff to get through it quickly, and you can use menus and fast travel to skip all the wandering around the monastery.
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this comes out the day before my birthday! my hype levels are at Maximum
...still have to actually get a switch first though, lol
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mnkboy907 posted...

If you don't care about the Persona-esque calendar stuff, you can apparently automate the teaching and stuff to get through it quickly, and you can use menus and fast travel to skip all the wandering around the monastery.

I definitely appreciate that they're including those as options. My problem's more the three paths, coming off Fates, a terrible game built around three paths.
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Well, that review seemed to be aware of that and specifically drew a contrast between 3H and Fates.

Mind you, given they had only played one route and just started a second I'm still a bit of a skeptic that that is an authoritative take, but it is a positive sign to me that the reviewer (1)Knew to make the comparison to Fates, (2)Criticized Fates for doing a bad job of it, and yet (3)Was still positive about 3H's try at it.

I mean, we'll see. I still don't really expect it to be some wildly divergent thing like all the "3 games in 1!" talk but in a way that might be a good thing because that's less room to go way off the rails (looking at you revelations.)
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I'm sure they'll do it better than Fates if only because the bar's so low. I'll find out when it comes out, I guess. It could be I'm just being cynical and assuming everything will be implemented badly!
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I'm mildly excited. It's been a while since I've played a FE since I never got around to Echoes.
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Do the characters have feet this time

I remember being super hyped for Awakening and not being able to play because I was so put off by the weird footless chibi models they used for so much of the game

I didn't know that was a sticking point for me but apparently it was
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I didn't realize Fates was so disliked. I really liked it myself.
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It's very polarised. Most of the negativity come from traditional fans of the series who lament how far it strays tonally from games like Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance, and the writing in particular tends to come in for heavy criticism. Meanwhile it remains very popular among more casual fans, and was very well received by critics. It's also frequently held up as having some of the best gameplay in the series, especially Conquest, even among those people who dislike much of the rest of Fates.

This is just speaking generally though. There are plenty of Fire Emblem fans like myself who still really like Fates, and are willing to overlook it's flaws. A new mainline game would get fans excited regardless, but from what people know of 3H, it looks to be writing a few perceived wrongs that some fans felt have been prevalent in the 3DS games, whilst not alienating the fans it picked up around that time.
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Conquest was great gameplay saddled by an atrocious story and an imbecile MC.

And Fates's problem was that they tried to pitch three separate routes, but it was blatantly obvious that Revelations was the true route, so Birthright and Conquest just feel pointless story wise.

As for Three Houses, some early leaks are comparing the story for it to Genealogy of the Holy War, so there's that.
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I liked Conquest's story.

Fates would've been better without the dumb three game thing though yes. Revelations especially really shouldn't have existed.
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Gonna get this when I get a Switch. Hoping it wont have too many gimmicky maps. I know some FE fans like those, but man I hated so many of the maps in Conquest its part of why I dropped the game. Some of them were just so dumb and werent challenging other than being tedious and more time consuming

A bunch more previews came out today. People like it.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/12/fire-emblem-three-houses-preview-nintendo-switch/
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-12-fire-emblem-three-houses-is-a-welcome-revolution-for-the-series
https://www.gameinformer.com/new-gameplay-today/new-gameplay-today/2019/07/11/new-gameplay-today-fire-emblem-three-houses
(GameXplain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdub-bmWYzA" data-time="
(IGN)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te6S1dCC0Mo" data-time="
https://kotaku.com/fire-emblem-three-houses-will-test-your-heart-and-your-1836305722
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/07/video_weve_been_playing_fire_emblem_three_houses_and_now_were_excited_for_more
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/51098/fire-emblem-three-houses-switch-hands-on-preview
https://www.polygon.com/guides/2019/7/12/20690742/fire-emblem-three-houses-class-system-units-skill-levels-certification-test
https://www.vg247.com/2019/07/12/fire-emblem-three-houses-preview-school-rpg/
https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/12/fire-emblem-three-houses-hands-on-conveniences-and-calendars/
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Sounds like the minmaxing will be nutty.

Hopefully i don't get too caught up in that because that's always the thing that makes me exhausted and drop the game.
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Sounding good and even a few details here and there that would exceed my expectations for what to expect from Fire Emblem.
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True min-maxing probably can't be achieved until the second or maybe even later runs.

One preview mentioned that the students you temporarily recruit for a month can appear in the story segments if they're relevant, so I can see myself wanting a list of who all can appear and try to recruit those students for those months. Not to mention work on training Byleth's stats to permanently recruit as many students as I can too.

It's gonna be hard not to overthink and over plan things... I still don't know if I want to start with the house I like the most or hold off on them until a NG+ run (but then run the risk of burning myself out before I even get to them).
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mnkboy907 posted...

True min-maxing probably can't be achieved until the second or maybe even later runs.

One preview mentioned that the students you temporarily recruit for a month can appear in the story segments if they're relevant, so I can see myself wanting a list of who all can appear and try to recruit those students for those months. Not to mention work on training Byleth's stats to permanently recruit as many students as I can too.

It's gonna be hard not to overthink and over plan things... I still don't know if I want to start with the house I like the most or hold off on them until a NG+ run (but then run the risk of burning myself out before I even get to them).

You could just like play it for fun tho instead
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Really hoping it does turn out to be great
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Yao posted...

mnkboy907 posted...

True min-maxing probably can't be achieved until the second or maybe even later runs.

One preview mentioned that the students you temporarily recruit for a month can appear in the story segments if they're relevant, so I can see myself wanting a list of who all can appear and try to recruit those students for those months. Not to mention work on training Byleth's stats to permanently recruit as many students as I can too.

It's gonna be hard not to overthink and over plan things... I still don't know if I want to start with the house I like the most or hold off on them until a NG+ run (but then run the risk of burning myself out before I even get to them).

You could just like play it for fun tho instead

Boy that would be something huh.
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Man, this sounds cool.
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My friend wants to know if it Will let you skip the parts where you got to play fire emblem and only let you do the persona type parts
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I haven't played a Fire Emblem since the first release in the West on GBA way back in 2003 or w/e, but the more I see of Three Houses the more excited I get. I'm already sold on it, and the previews today just made the wait that much harder for me. I think I'm going to start with the Golden Deer house since it looks the most interesting to me.
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ninkendo posted...

My friend wants to know if it Will let you skip the parts where you got to play fire emblem and only let you do the persona type parts

no. unfortunately, unlike fe8 this game does not contain seth
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Professor Pervert
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Watched a few of the preview videos rather than just reading articles. Feeling more hyped now.

The GameXplain video was probably the most comprehensive of the 4-5 I watched though it's 23 minutes long. IGN's 5 minute take was probably the next best if you wanted a shorter version.
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Is there children characters?
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TheRock1525 posted...

Is there children characters?

No
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So no waifus?
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every Fire Emblem has waifus
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TheRock1525 posted...

So no waifus?

how naive

Romance is confirmed, although (Revealed around E3 but if you're on spoiler blackout I guess avoid) only after the timeskip and not during the school section.
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You can waifu, but you cant create life-u basically. Probably didnt want to do too many games that needed time travel children plots I guess

The bigger question is if you can ship everyone with everyone or if characters are limited in who they can support with this time? Do you know the answer to that one, xp?
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ninkendo posted...

My friend wants to know if it Will let you skip the parts where you got to play fire emblem and only let you do the persona type parts

Lower difficulties are about as close as you can get. Turn off battle animations to make it go by faster.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

The bigger question is if you can ship everyone with everyone or if characters are limited in who they can support with this time? Do you know the answer to that one, xp?

I do not, no. I know that it seems from the previews so far like the only one who can reach S support with anyone is MC everyone else seems capped at A at least from the images floating around from them. But that could just mean a return to romantic/paired A supports.

But I'll admit that either that would imply a return of a support cap (at least for the others) to prevent multiple A ranks or that none of them are romantic.

But people have noticed at least one ">>" symbol above an A support between two characters and there's debate on what exactly that means.

Finally, I think engadget is the only previewer who has gotten far enough to be beyond the timeskip so it's also possible that supports are limited to some extent by story progression and all those images are too early to know for sure. IIRC, during treehouse they said something about different supports later in the game.

tl;dr: idk lol
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They said the final wave of DLC will be adding more story and playable characters, and part of me can't help but think it's gonna be kids.
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I haven't played or even seen anything of a Fire Emblem since the first one that came to the west after Melee came out. How similar is Three Houses to Fates and Awakening (are they the same thing or was that something else that was split into multiple titles?), and how similar is Awakening to all the others?
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ZaziGuado posted...

I haven't played or even seen anything of a Fire Emblem since the first one that came to the west after Melee came out. How similar is Three Houses to Fates and Awakening (are they the same thing or was that something else that was split into multiple titles?), and how similar is Awakening to all the others?

Look at the first review.

Its completely different.
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ZaziGuado posted...

I haven't played or even seen anything of a Fire Emblem since the first one that came to the west after Melee came out. How similar is Three Houses to Fates and Awakening (are they the same thing or was that something else that was split into multiple titles?), and how similar is Awakening to all the others?

Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses are all separate games. Fates has 3 different versions: Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations. It's kind of like Pokemon Versions in that you buy either Birthright or Conquest and can then get the other (and Revelations) as DLC.

Awakening is conceptually similar to FE7 (the first one that came west after Melee) though it has a player avatar (think the tactician from FE7, but now a playable unit) and characters can marry when they reach the highest support level (S) and it resulted in them having kid(s) who would also be playable units. There's story reasons for how that worked.

Fates is again more-or-less similar from a gameplay standpoint although they retained the marry/kids thing but this time they threw out the plot reasons why it made any sense.

Three Houses's core battle gameplay looks to be the same as FE7/Awakening/Fates with some new mechanics. However, the big difference between it and previous Fire Emblems is that it has an explorable hub thing between battles/chapters that most people have compared to Persona where you can explore, pick up sidequests, talk with students, etc.

Awakening would be the most similar experience to FE7 of the lot, IMO. Fanbase consensus is actually that 3H is taking most cues from FE4 (which never came west) and the Tellius (Gamecube/Wii games; Where Ike is from) games. Although the easiest comparison is to Fates since both have a "3 Routes" thing going on but unlike Fates where you had to buy the other routes, 3H has them all in the game.
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It's Fates that was split between three versions (Birthright/Conquest/Revelations). Aside from that they're all standalone titles.

Three Houses is being more experimental than the 3DS titles by adding Persona-esque school and calendar elements. It's also similar to Fates in that there are three stories, but unlike Fates they're all included in one package. The main character is a professor and you choose one of three houses' students to teach. This means you have unprecedented control over your units and how they grow, by deciding what classes they become, what weapons they become proficient in, etc...

Or you can just automate most/all of that process and more or less go from story battle to story battle like past games if none of that interests you.

It also appears to be much heavier on the story and world-building than the 3DS games.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Look at the first review.

Its completely different.

The combat really doesn't seem to be that different! Battalions seems to me to be a revised version of Pair-Up. If anything, the biggest changes I've heard of are that you can apparently freely change between any class a character is "qualified" as and that magic got overhauled. The GameXplain video explains it as something like your Cleric starts with 5 uses of Heal but as they improve their magic the use count will go up to say 10 and they'll learn new spells like Physic (Heal but can be used at range for those unfamiliar) as opposed to buying different staves to perform the spells.

The big change is 100% the social/explore mechanic.
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Oh right, but there definitely are other changes to the battle side of things. They added a new gauntlet weapon. There's giant monster enemies (that take up like 2x2 or 3x3 spaces or something). The weapon triangle doesn't exist like normal, but instead is more based around how skills and classes interact. Weapon durability is back, but broken weapons can still be used (with worse stats of course) and then later repaired. And I'm sure there's more I either forgot or haven't learned about.
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Not all of that is entirely new! Though yeah, I didn't mean to imply that was an exhaustive list of changes I was listing. There's certainly more to it than that. It's still fundamentally Fire Emblem combat though and the previews agree with that.
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Yeah I know at least the weapons thing was in FE4, which the developers said this game takes the most inspiration from.
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