Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 134
- 2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Just finished Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
Pretty good music, amazing voice-acting, so-so story, gameplay that massively overstays its welcome and goes from okay to tedious near the end. Having to replay the first half multiple times to get the full story is especially unforgivable.
I could write a longer review but I feel like Fire emblem is a series where you're either a fan and have played them all or are not and are not even remotely interested.
I used Eden, which is a sort of unofficial continuation of the Ryuji emulator. Excellent performance, no bugs or issues to speak of. Nintendo should really be paying these people to port their games and selling them on PC.
As someone that has played them all (other than 1 and 2, which were made obsolete by their remakes), 3H is probably the Fire Emblem I'd be least likely to every try to play again, and I only finished 2 routes. The guiding principle of modern FE is that every single playable character is potentially the self-insert's husband/wife, and it severely handicaps what they can do in both story and gameplay. The majority of the cast were prevented from having any meaningful role in the second half of the plot, and the ability to always recruit the best characters from each house couldn't have helped the balance design. 3H tried really hard to get the Persona audience when the SMT spinoff they should have emulated was Devil Survivor, where playable characters will happily tell you to fuck off if you choose a route they wouldn't agree with.
I looked into this one very briefly and it sounds like "Three Houses but better". Thanks for the accidental recommendation, I'll check it out next!
+1 for Devil Survivor, pretty unique and well-designed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Despite its flaws, I love this game. I think it has the pieces to have been a true masterpiece but got pushed out the door a year too early. If I could make just one change it would be to make the first half the game roughly 15 chapters and have you rotate classes for each chapter so you spend about 5 chapters with each class. That's probably enough time to get the students started on their specialization routes and grow emotionally attached before killing 2/3 of them in the second half. Let students who bond with you audit with other classes as the recruitment mechanism. Have the last chapter act as a checkpoint before the branching paths so you don't have to replay the first half every time. I'd also probably axe the Church route and incorporate its story elements into the Deer and Lions routes, get rid of the class system and just have [level] x [1 movement type] x [up to 2 physical and/or 1 magical weapon type, with tradeoffs for going past 1 weapon type], make the proficiencies/deficiencies more influential on skill growths so each unit feels unique.
But it is what it is, and still manages to be my favorite Fire Emblem game. Six years later, I can recall every student's name and story. By the end, I found something to like about all of them (except maybe Leonie) and remember the bittersweet feeling when I killed each of them. I couldn't give you more than 4 names from Fates and literally 0 from Engage. Neither's advantage in map design or graphics was really enough to get over how thoroughly off-putting the characterization was. Despite the interesting gameplay mechanics in Engage, by the halfway point I was desperately rushing through in the hopes it would get slightly more tolerable (it didn't). I think I would have replayed (many times over) a version of that game with everything about the strategy gameplay the same but with the story cut out and the characters reduced to faceless chess pieces without dialogue. The only other thing to make me feel so viscerally disgusted was probably James Cameron's Avatar (another piece of media where I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly why it elicits so much hate in me).
Yeah, I agree completely. We were this close to greatness, the devs just stumbled in a few minor ways which ultimately turned a magnificent game into one that is merely pretty good.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think Three Houses is good but overambitious. The idea of multiple story routes through the game is neat, but having to do four playthroughs to get the full story is just absurd. In my playthrough, I did the church route and the story with the people pulling the strings completely fizzles out (apparently it gets handled better in the Golden Deer route, but you should resolve the main villains competently without requiring multiple playthroughs). And as you said, it's not like the routes differ enough to make them interesting every time. I hope that in the future they don't try the multiple routes thing again, and stick to telling a single coherent story.
Yeah, agreed. For me, this part went like this: everyone arrives at the huge and mysterious underground city and gapes in wonder. What could await us down there? Danger? Treasure? Answers?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link