I can't believe I haven't reviewed a Fire Emblem game here before (it's one of my favorite series), but I figured I should go with Fire Emblem Three Houses, which in a few short months, will be 7 years old! It's unbelievable how quickly time flies... I remember getting this game on release night with my friend and each of us played it on our Switch late into the night because we just couldn't put it down. Without further ado, I'm going to break down my thoughts on Three Houses and talk about what I like, dislike, and why I think it stands out as one of the strongest entries in the series overall.


GRAPHICS: 8

For me, Fire Emblem Three Houses is a bit of a mixed bag visually… the artistic style is strong, stylized, and very charming, but from a technical standpoint, it's underwhelming in many ways.

For starters, many of the textures, particularly on walls, floors, and distant objects are very muddy and low-resolution. This is especially noticeable during support conversations and when you're freely exploring Garreg Mach Monastery. Revisiting some of the screenshots I took from my old playthroughs, I came across the infamous warped V-shaped background that appear in a lot of cutscenes and support conversations… oof. It looks like the backgrounds are 2D images wrapped around a cylindrical or spherical plane, which gives the illusion of a 3D environment while cutting down on processing power. I understand that the Switch isn't super powerful, but what we're left with are environments with a lot of warped, distorted objects that are very noticeable and unsightly. This can also probably be chalked up to strict time constraints, deadlines, and prioritizing other things like the 3D combat.

The character models also suffer from little to no anti-aliasing, which leads to jagged lines that stand out during cutscenes. It's definitely not immersion-breaking by any means (at least not for me), but it's hard to unsee once you notice it.

I could go on, but all things considered, the graphical shortcomings didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game much. I've played through Three Houses several times now, so I'm able to zip through the monastery portions fairly quickly since I know where my students are and where to find all the lost items. During auxiliary or story battles, I play using the overhead grid view that allows me to easily see the entire map. You can toggle perspectives to get a zoomed in ground-level view of your units and the battlefield, which is cool to see, but it quickly gets cumbersome to play this way since you have to drag the cursor 50 miles away to select another unit. There are also a lot of maps with fog, dense forests, and very muted colors, which makes navigating the battlefield from this perspective a nightmare. Thankfully, when you or the enemy engages in combat, the perspective automatically shifts to a more zoomed in view to take in the action better when you're firing an arrow or launching a fireball at someone. I like this because it still allows you to experience the combat and character models up close without wasting time.

I do think Fire Emblem Engage, the successor to Three Houses, looks much more polished overall. Engage benefits from better technical optimization, sharper, higher resolution textures, and better anti-aliasing. That said, I still think Three Houses holds its own thanks to its strong art style, and memorable character designs.


SOUND: 10

Three Houses’ sound design is definitely one of the game's strongest elements. The soundtrack is consistently excellent, and I love that many of the intense orchestral tracks dynamically shift between calm and intense (rain and thunder versions) depending on the situation. This adds a lot of energy to enemy skirmishes.

The voice acting is also excellent. I have to give a nod to Chris Hackney's performance in voicing Dimitri, the leader of the Blue Lions House. He did an outstanding job capturing Dimitri's character and his transformation from polite, stoic, pre-timeskip prince to traumatized, feral post-timeskip king. The rest of the cast also does a fantastic job of bringing each of their characters, their personalities, and their struggles to life, whether it's Claude's sarcasm and charisma, Edelgard's commanding presence, or Lorenz’s insufferable, pompous, elitist attitude (can't stand that guy!). Support conversations benefit from this immensely, especially between two characters with opposing personalities (Dimitri/Sylvain's and Felix/Annette's support conversations immediately come to mind).

Overall, the sound is impeccable. The Fire Emblem series has plenty of iconic songs from Path of Radiance, Awakening, Fates, etc., and Three Houses is no exception. Some standout tracks for me include God-Shattering Star (the best track in the game in my opinion), Apex of the World, Edge of Dawn, Roar of Dominion, and Chasing Daybreak.


ADDICTIVENESS: 8

Where do I even begin…

For me, Three Houses is one of those “just one more battle… better yet, let's go through one more week, my sword proficiency is almost at an A!” kind of games. The loop of teaching students, optimizing everyone's build, increasing their proficiency with their preferred weapons/magic, and then testing them on the battlefield is enormously satisfying. As someone who loves seeing my Pokémon grow into unstoppable monsters with perfect stats and excellent coverage moves, I find Fire Emblem games even more satisfying to play through.

There's always something to do or work toward – whether it's mastering a class, preparing for a story mission, or recruiting another student to join your house. I remember being curious about so many different characters in my first playthrough and how strong they'd become, how they'd fit into my team, and what interesting support conversations they might have with units already in my house. In later playthroughs, I recruited nearly every recruitable student from the other Houses, except for the ones I knew were lame or useless. Looking at you, Ignatz and Ashe…

Of course, monastery exploration can get a bit repetitive over multiple playthroughs, or even within the same playthrough since it's highly recommended you explore the monastery once a month to complete quests, collect lost items, and raise student motivation by inviting them to tea or eating a meal with them. Even with fast travel and a better understanding of the game, the mechanics, what to do, where to go that comes with subsequent playthroughs, you'll still be going through the same motions each month. It doesn't kill the experience, but I guess you could say it does slightly dampen the “can't put it down factor” over time. Fortunately, you can shake up what you do week to week – a few battles at the end of the first week, a seminar at the end of the second week, explore the monastery at the end of the 3rd week, etc., which keeps things exciting and allows you to prioritize the activities you enjoy most.


STORY: 9

Fire Emblem: Three Houses delivers one of the strongest and most layered narratives in the series. Without spoiling everything, here's the gist of Three Houses' story:

You play as Byleth, a mercenary who is recruited as a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery to teach one of the three houses – Black Eagles, Blue Lions, and Golden Deer. What starts as a fairly grounded academy setting gradually evolves into a much larger and more serious conflict, with the story splitting into multiple routes depending on the house you chose.

Each path offers a very different perspective on the same central war, and there’s no clear “good vs evil.” Characters like Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude all have believable motivations and flaws, which makes the story feel nuanced and, at times, morally gray. Playing multiple routes really highlights how much your perspective can shift depending on the side you’re on.

The cast of characters is a major highlight. Through support conversations, your students feel like fully realized characters, and watching them grow over time makes the story’s emotional moments land much harder.
Some routes reuse maps, and no single path gives you the full picture – but that structure also makes replaying the game more rewarding since it incentivizes you to see the story unfold from different perspectives.


DEPTH: 10

This is where Three Houses truly shines brightest.

With a title like Three Houses, you'd think there'd be three different routes you can choose from, right? But ohoho, there are actually four! The Blue Lions and Golden Deer houses each have one route, while the Black Eagle house branches into two distinct routes based on a critical mid-game decision. So, if you want to experience Three Houses, the four distinct routes in their entirety, and get the full picture of the story you'll need multiple playthroughs. You can easily spend a few hundred hours playing through every route, but it's definitely worth it.

Each route offers a different perspective on the world, its conflict, and its characters. No single path gives you the “complete” story, which makes piecing the events that happen in each route, from different perspectives, incredibly rewarding. When you choose a house at the start of the game, you get attached to your students and the royal territory they're connected to. When you progress through the game and experience important plot points from one lens, your House, it’s harder to fully grasp and understand the actions and decisions made by the other major powers in the game since a lot of things happen behind the scenes that you won't see unless you experience the story through from their perspective. You'll frequently ask “Huh? Why did they do that?” or “What led to this development?” and it won't fully click until you play through the other houses.

Beyond the narrative, the gameplay systems are layered with depth. With the teaching system and flexible class progression, you can mold your students to fill whatever role you want. Class skills, combat arts, and gambits add tactical variety, and support conversations deepen relationships and unlock additional perks and bonuses.

There's a lot of game to enjoy and engage with whether you're a series veteran min-maxing your units or a first timer just playing casually.


DIFFICULTY: 6

Like most entries in the series, Three Houses offers 3 difficulty levels – Normal (for beginners), Hard (for experienced players), and Maddening, which as the name suggests, is... maddening. Definitely not for the faint of heart since it will make you want to tear your skin off from the get-go. It's no joke.

There are also two different game modes that affect how you play the game – Casual Mode and Classic Mode.

In Casual Mode, whenever a unit is defeated, they retreat instead of dying. This means they will come back to participate in future battles and survive until the end of the game.

In Classic Mode, whenever a unit dies, it's permanent. They're gone forever and won't return for future battles. This forces you to think about every move you make very carefully since you now run the risk of losing your units for good.

If this is your first Fire Emblem game or you simply want to enjoy the game and the story, I would recommend playing on either Normal/Hard difficulty on Casual Mode. If you're experienced and want more of a challenge, I'd go with Hard/Classic. And if you're a hard-core veteran or you just really hate yourself... go with Maddening. It's a massive step up from Hard in terms of difficulty. Enemies have significantly boosted stats, new skills, and reinforced numbers. Additionally, the experience you gain from defeating enemies is dramatically reduced. Maddening requires precise strategy; you have to level your units efficiently and use everything in your toolkit – combat arts, gambits, and divine pulse (basically a rewind button). You also need to take enemy skills into consideration. For example, if you attempt to take out an enemy that has the skill Poison Strike during your attack phase but fail, they can attack you during their turn, which will cause Poison Strike to activate which will reduce your HP by 20% if they didn't already kill you.

Personally, I've played through all 4 routes on Hard/Classic and had a lot of fun. While I do wish Hard was more challenging, I think Maddening swings way too far in the other direction for my taste. I like the idea of enemy units having higher stats and additional skills they don't normally have... but not at the cost of earning only 30-40% of the EXP of Normal mode. Add to that the fact that reinforcements are now able to move and attack the same turn they show up? No thanks. I'm sure I could get through a Madening playthrough if I really put my mind to it. Maybe I'll give it a try someday, but for now, I really don't want Three Houses or any Fire Emblem game for that matter, to join the likes of games like Bloodborne and Sekiro, which just make me want to tear my eyeballs out most of the time.


OVERALL: 9.3

Fire Emblem Three Houses is an outstanding strategy RPG that excels in storytelling, character development, and gameplay depth. While its visuals are a little rough around the edges (literally) and monastery exploration can get a bit tedious, the core experience is still incredibly engaging and rewarding.

For me, few games make multiple full playthroughs feel this meaningful (last I checked, I think I clocked in almost 400 play hours on my most recent save file). Whether you’re here for the tactical combat, the rich narrative, or the colorful cast of characters, Three Houses delivers enormously and currently stands as my favorite entry in the series.