Fire Emblem Three Houses: 50 points to Gryffin- Black Eagles!

[Mеа]

What is Fire Emblem Three Houses?
Anime Hogwarts with turn-based strategy gameplay segments.
Choose from one of three houses and lead your students in academics, romance, and war.


Spoilers.

So I just finished the Black Eagle path, Edelgard's route. And it took me about 40 hours.

Spoiler:

So, finishing the game would presumably take about 120 more hours.

I'm surprised by how cliffhanger-y the ending was, I thought I had a whole other act left to deal with the dark people. Or maybe they're sufficiently dealt with in one of the other paths.

The slow pacing from part 1 was very drastically put on accel in part 2, things went by very quickly. I think it was a combination of having less faculty/advanced drills to have to do, slightly less people to talk to in the cathedral, developing a routine, and of course the story actually changing gears. Now this felt more like a typical Fire Emblem in its quick pacing of battle to battle, and it felt nice, but at the same time it felt kinda rushed considering how slowly they were pacing the story in part 1. It also felt like things were going too smoothly for how foreboding everything seemed to be in part 1, like every victory was too easily attained (from a story perspective, gameplay aside). I expected more, tbh. The whole Edelgard needing to be a steel-hearted emperor, to make many sacrifices and shed lots of blood to attain peace, that dramatic and morally grey irony, wasn't really present in the atmosphere of part 2. Writing could have been better, but I think it was alright.

I'm surprised the Flame Emperor was who he was, but also that nothing came out of it. Also Death Knight kinda came and went and Edelgard said there'd be an explanation after but there was none. I assume there's more to explore of him in the other paths.

The characters were quite well done, to be expected of Fire Emblem. I even don't mind Caspar (though, are the ending pairing the canon pairings? Or can you influence them by how much support points each one builds? Can't say I like his since the her had a much better support in another guy.) Hubert and Linhardt especially grew on me. The initial impression I got from them was not too positive, but I ended up liking them a lot, Hubert especially. Petra seemed like that stereotypical foreigner emblem character, but the biggest difference came about in her support with Edelgard when she made a joke at her own expense, being self-aware of her not-great at English-ness, I thought it was great. Also she was my MVP, dodge-tanking everything on wyvern-back. Her and Caspar, who quad-punched everything to death, what's with that.

I couldn't bring myself to pair myself with any of the students, it didn't seem appropriate or what I wished the professor that I was to do, so I ended up with Sothis. Uh, the true route I guess? Works for me. I hope we explore more of her character in the other paths, since my thoughtless pairing with her made me more interested in her. Funny how that works.

So now I'm going to do Blue Lions, I suppose, though I'm not as excited since I think I'm going to be working with the church and I don't like Flayn or Rhea (Church route is going to be even worse, since I'd have to redo like half of what I already just did). Most looking forward to doing Yellow Deers, but I might have to do that one last.

Overall, I think the writing was given much more care and attention than Fates, which is great. And although I think they succeeded at what they were going for, some of the design choices aren't necessarily to my liking. There's a lot of bloat inbetween the story segments that drag out the pacing in part 1 (and part 2, but I felt like part 2 was much leaner). The monastery parts are necessary to help you connect with the students, but I feel like something could have been done to hasten it more. My routine for the month tended to be: explore the first week, followed by varying amounts of exploring (mostly used to eat with students to raise motivation) and doing missions. I think the motivation raising could be improved on, it doesn't add a whole lot to getting to connect with your students while taking up quite some time. The mission battles outside the story battles really prolonged things, I wish they weren't so frequent. You could even omit them completely and replace it with more paralogues, that'd be good. Took too much time. Quests could probably be done away with entirely.

I sound a bit harsh on the game, but I am enjoying myself. I don't think this is the best Fire Emblem. But it is a good one. There aren't really any big flaws I think, just design choices that aren't to my taste. But that's fine. It's better than SoV I'd say, and whether it's better than Fates or not is, mmm, up to preference. Better than Awakening? Eh, seems somewhat incomparable, really, apples and oranges. If they keep the same writing team and get the Fates gameplay dev team together, they could really make the best Fire Emblem ever.

But here's to another 40 hours.

[commandercool]

Aw man so much spoiler text I won't be able to click on for a while. 

I don't know if it's me or the game or both, but I feel like I've been moving through Three Houses veeeery slowly. It's constructed in a way that makes me want to play it in tiny bite sized pieces, I don't usually feel up for playing through multiple exploration sessions in one go. Which is a great fit for the Switch, but it doesn't lend itself to speed...

[Raikaria]

Oh; this thread popped up. It's a bit late; but I've been playing this a lot.

So far I've done:

Golden Deer on Normal - I'd hardly played FE before this; it was a 'get my footing' run. I didn't recruit anyone. Ignatz was useless.

Black Eagles

Spoiler:

Edelgard/Imperial Route

on Hard was next, although I had to turn the difficulty down to Normal for the final level, I didn't quite have enough to win it

Spoiler:

The final boss was just too tough and I didn't do enough damage; I literally could just about get to it; but not defeat it

. I recruited Sylvain on this route because I decided to F-Byleth this time and he's free as F-Byleth. Also my Caspar got hard STR-screwed. How hard?

- Caspar and Dorothea are the same level in the final mission
- Dorothea is a Gremory and has followed Warlock progression. She has a natural 20 STR growth; and while she was a Mage [10->20] this is penalized by 5%.
- Caspar is a War Master; having followed the Brigand line. Caspar has 45% STR growth naturally; and Fighter->Brigand->Warrior-> War Master adds 5% for each stage. So as a War Master he had *65%* STR-growth
- Caspar has 26 STR. Dorothea has 24.

Needless to say; Caspar was dead weight that run.

Also Hubert was my Dancer.

Currently on Mission 18 of Blue Lions Hard. I'm romping through with little resistance and I'm hoping this will be my first full Hard-mode clear. Of all units to call my MVP this run it's probobly *Mercedes* who not only heals like a boss; but also nukes so hard she's one-rounding Beasts. I recruited Lionie because I wanted a backup should Ashe's 35% STR screw him [His statline is basically 'Ignatz but somehow even worse' and I'm on Hard not Normal so...] and it did so... Bow Knight Lionie gogo.

I plan to do

Spoiler:

The Church Route

on Hard after, and then go back and do Deer Hard. Ultimately I'm preparing for the upcoming release of Lunatic Mode.

Two class based tips for people:

1: NEVER go Preist. Priest gives 10 CHA and 5 RES, but in exchange you have 5 less MAG growth than Mage, and MAG is king. Also; Miracle [The Preist mastery] should never need to be used. Fiendish Blow [When attacking; +6 MAG] is one of the best class masteries in the game. Mage > Priest every time. Every single healer in the game can easily meet Mage requirements. Bishop is fine, but seriously don't go Priest.

2: Mortal Savant is a trap. Casters won't ever want to use Swords [Even Levin is basically pointless for a dedicated caster; just use spells?]. Swordies generally have low MAG and bad~godawful spell lists and are Magic-locked until Savant. Savant also has a -10% Speed Growth. If you want a 2-rage option as a Sword-user; just stay Swordmaster/Assassin and use a Bow that actually scales with your STR stat; and you can put your skill efforts into Authority/Swords/Bows instead of Reason.

Even Felix; who has a budding talent in Reason, is really bad as a Mortal Savant. He has a 30% MAG growth and only learns TWO SPELLS [Both by rank C to boot] when he has a 55% STR growth he can use with his starting proficiency in Bows *and* works with his Crest unlike Reason magic.

The character who can probably best pull it off is Ingrid, and that's only because she gets 35% growth in both STR and MAG so it functions more like a failsafe. But even then; Ingrid's better as a Dark Knight if you must go Hybrid Magic/Weapon due to Lance/Riding proficiency.