Fire Emblem Three Houses holds a special place for me, it's the first Fire Emblem game I've completed but not the first one I own. I came across this game by happenstance as I picked up it's spin off Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes instead.
Now before you judge me, I've only known Fire Emblem as those sword guys who get included in every Smash game but that's a disservice considering how much of Smashs roster is video game legacy, so I'd like to think my mistake was blissful ignorance on my end.
I was appalled to see just how much content was in three houses that got cut out or altered in three hopes, so I was very excited to play this game and it didn't disappoint.
The graphics: 9/10 I love everything about this games aesthetic. When you boot up the game, your in for something very special as you see the title screen with a highlighted goddess throne. Starting a new file, and your greeted to some well drawn anime inspired cutscenes that I wished persisted throughout the entire game. You then see the in game models and they're wonderfully designed. Byleth is all powerful and mysterious, Jeralt looks like an old man with a troubled albeit cherished past life, and each of the 3 lords have great designs that match their personalities perfectly.
The in game animations are good too, each hit you land and miss feeling very impactful especially when you land a critical attack.
My only gripe is that too many paralogues and skirmishes share the same map, and we shouldn't have to buy cindered shadows for this small shortcoming. More varied maps would've done wonders on top of the world building that is Fodlan.
Sound: 7/10
My main gripe is that the main motifs of Fodlan Winds, Chasing Daybreak, and The Long Road overstay their welcome. These 3 songs play for the majority of your campaign time, and unlike previous fire emblem games there's no dedicated enemy phase theme which I think would've helped.
But the soundtrack is really good with some standout songs absolutely setting the mood, Scales Of The Goddess, God Shattering Star, and Between Heaven and Earth just to name a handful.
The voice acting is incredibly well done and carries the story hard. Every bit of dialogue is voice lined which helps to the world building, any event that happens in the story and the students react to it in kind.
This couldn't be possibly demonstrated any better than by Chris Hackneys performance as Dimitri throughout the Blue Lions campaign.
Addictiveness: 7/10 and Depth 10/10 Despite it replacing the weapons triangle system in favor of gambits and adjutants, Fire Emblem Three Houses is still Fire Emblem at its core. This game offers 5 passive slots for your characters to rock with and each class has its own mastery reward ranging from noble/commoners HP+5 to myrmidons SPD+2, and Monks Magic+2.
You can really play around with what build you want to give your units as you make those students into absolute monsters of your own.
My main reason for addictiveness not being higher is that Fire Emblem Three Houses has a very integral and very demanding of your time Hub World, this being Garreg Mach Monastery. The monastery has you doing very crucial work such as raising your professor ranking so you can do more activities, get more students motivated, and get more instruction lessons done to them throughout the week.
There's also plenty of side missions throughout the weeks that you'll want to complete in order to gain renown for the goddess statues later in the game, these have active passives like +1 to combat experience which means you could master a class much faster than you would normally, and no you don't have to equip these.
Even with new game plus, you still have to spend renown to unlock previous weapon proficiency ranks and mastery passives.
It's very time consuming especially compared to Engages Hub World, so while I love it for its world building, I don't like it as a casual Fire Emblem enjoyer.
Story: 7/10. (Spoiler warnings below, be careful.)
Fire Emblem Three Houses has pretty good story telling, but I do have some gripes almost every route has the same linear progression in every map, with some routes missing some maps all together. For instance if you play Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, you skip the rematch of the Eagle and the Lion as it's not available for those two routes.
My second gripe is that the Agarthians are under utlitized, with only Sliver Snow and Golden Deer acknowledging their continued threat on Fodlan after the time skip. You know Nemesis, the king of liberation the game hints at? Only Golden Deer gets him as a final boss when it would've been very well done for Crimson Flower to have him be Edelgards final boss as she was one of the most impacted lords from the Agarthians actions, and you only learn that from playing the Black Eagles route.
I understand this was due to unfortunate time constraint as the game was rushed to meet it's 2019 deadline, but little touchups like this would've made the story telling so much better.
Difficulty: 6/10 Three Houses has difficulty and an option between classic and casual. I completed the Blue Lions route on hard/classic, and I refuse to touch maddening with its crazy overinflated stats.
Most of the maps will be a straight forward kill every last one of them endeavor with only some of them having a turn limit to kill the boss.
As long as you run good units and they don't fall behind like my poor Bernadetta did when it came to her strength stat, you'll be fine. The combat forecast is extremely helpful here too.
And there's the fact that this game seems to not be Ironman friendly, as your pretty much locked in with the units you've chosen at the start of the gsme any additional units you get will have some pretty tough weapon and stat proficiency requirements for you to follow to recruit them outside of their respective house.
Other Fire Emblem games will just give you replacement units as the game progresses, but not so much with Three Houses.
Overall: 9.6 out of 10. I still love 3 houses and I can't wait to get back and finish the remaining routes. The game has some minor flaws here and there with it's story telling, but I argue it's done well everywhere else and makes up for it.
I highly recommend this as apart of your Nintendo Switch library.
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