Fire Emblem: Three Houses

[Suits]

So despite having never seriously played a Fire Emblem game prior to this (other than more than a few hours of Path of Radiance on the GameCube) I have gone all in on the new release in the series on the Switch.

I picked up the BEAUTIFUL Limited Edition with art book, coins, badges, locks of hair, underwear and art book.

I enjoy tactical combat games, recently I've played Wargroove, Mario Rabbids and while I understand that this is/will be different to those, I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm family with the sort of pace and structure of these games - but this will have more.

So far, I'm taking my time and settling into the characters, the combat feels fun and compelling and the introduction (to me) of enemies carrying and dropping items seems really fun and interesting.

I've picked the Leicester Alliance house, mainly as it fitted my sort of idilic structure and it looks cool as cats with its brown stag on a yellow crest.

I've named my character Charles, after my Son, and I'm RP'n this as I'd like to think he would make decisions - which is always fun to do as it gives me some sort of direction and vision for the character.

I've just enrolled as professor in the Monastery and I'm now meeting the house leaders and their students.

It's cool, as there's not millions, form what I can see each house has one leader and seven students, each one is introduced with good chapters screens and a short but detailed introduction from the house leader.

It's bitsize enough to not be daunting to take in, yet detailed enough to be interesting and fun.

I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of the students and really getting into the battles.

This will be my holiday game this year I think. Lat year I took away Octopath Traveller and very much enjoyed getting into that, this year it will be my sole Holiday game.

Two things of immediate note,

1 - Some of the cut screens are in a weird resolution/frame rate, compared to the game, which I find jarring. Not the full on animated scenes as such but theres something different about the astehetic of it at times which I find awkward. MK11 had a similar issue with me.

2 - It has auto-play on cutscenes and dialogue !!! This is amazing. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had the same option, which makes cutscenes and dialogue areas a real pleasure to sink into and take in.

Having to press A to progress speak I find extremely mood breaking and I look forward to seeing the little dialogue interchanges now and really listen properly and focus on what is unfolding.

The little anime videos and class, real class and I'm enjoying them a lot.

This is a first for me, I feel like enough things are lining up correctly for me to actually enjoy this style of game.

Although I'm still very early in.

[Alex79]

Yeah interested to read thoughts on this. It's a series I've always admired from afar and never got involved with. The thing that struck me the most about this new one is how different it looks from the others, almost Persona style. I've actually just started the GBA Fire Emblem, and whilst I know full well I'm highly unlikely to finish it, it's fun so far.

[Flabyo]

The reviews seem to suggest its a more tactical and deep game than the more recent 3ds ones have been, but at the same time I really dislike the anime tropes you usually get around these ‘military academy, but really it’s just a high school anime” settings (I never did get to the end of Valkyria 2)

Visually it’s definitely a different beast isn’t it?

One I’d be tempted to get if I saw it cheaper later, but I suspect if I don’t get it soon it’ll join games like Tokyo Mirage Sessions in the ‘hah, you think you can buy this for less than £100?’ category.

[Stanshall]

I've somehow racked up twelve hours on this since release and I'm loving it. A recent playthrough of FF7 and the sweltering heat has got me in the mood for something a little more patient and meditative than my usual arcade fayre. I've never played a FE game before and, more so, I have never enjoyed a tactical RPG/SRPG, whatever they're called. I got virtually nothing from Wargroove, Into the Breach, Mario + Rabbids, X-Com, Advance Wars, any of that stuff. I quite liked Hero Quest and Space Hulk when I was nine but that was about it. I've also never enjoyed Persona (which this lifts loads from) and despite putting twenty or thirty hours into P5 hoping for it to click, there were only a few moments of dialogue and character stuff which made me feel like I wanted to play any more.

Anyway, this has clearly hit the spot in a very different way. I really like the setting, it's fairly compact but with enough variety of stuff to do. The roster of characters is quite large but almost every single one is distinctive enough that you get a good feel for their individual personality pretty quickly. Some therefore seem little one-note and broad at first, I assume to help shape them as distinct, but within a couple of months of chats and seeing them interact and doing various activities, you see that they all have some depth. Some of the characters are great. I had also expected it to be a bit freshers' week waifus, but it's really not. It's all quite modest and wholesome and good-natured. Really lovely comforting atmosphere. It's not completely unlike Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in that respect, the small moments and certain interactions were the highlights of that game for me, but the writing and voice work and narrative are all in a different league here.

I won't go into the combat much other than to say it's brought me in quite gently (as a total noob/non-believer) but always with something interesting and new to learn. Even the very first battles are fun and have some basic tactical requirements or benefits. Twelve hours in, there are some pretty challenging moments, to be honest. I've had to actually stop, look at the map and actually plan all my moves out. This is not my thing whatsoever, I can hardly stress that enough, but here it is gripping and so much fun. I'm also playing with Permadeath on which adds a whole lot more tension.

Massive recommendation from me and currently right up there with Sekiro and Cuphead as my GOTY.

[Chopper]

You got me Suits, you got me good

[KSubzero1000]

You lot just completely ignored my four years of shilling for the series and now have the audacity to act all surprised that this game somehow magically doesn't turn out to be a complete turd. Some friends you are.

Anyway, it might be a while before I get the opportunity to play it myself, so can we please use spoiler tags when discussing plot details? I'd love to read everybody's reactions and opinions without having to worry about that kind of stuff. In any case, very glad to hear some of you are already on board with it.

And yeah, that LE is spec-ta-cu-lar.

[Stanshall]

Absolutely. I'll keep any plot stuff to spoilers if I even mention it. Having a fantastic time with it, though. My wife has been in work and she's out this evening. I've barely moved from the sofa...

[KSubzero1000]

I'm happy to see the positive reception this game is getting, on here and elsewhere. It's just a bit difficult for me to know how much of that would translate to my personal experience and expectations of the series, since most of the enthusiasm seems to come from either series newcomers or Awakening fans, both of which are probably looking at this game under a very different lens than me.

I hope this game can cross the gap between the two factions, really. As long there is solid map design, substantial tactical options and a great story to keep me happy, I'll look past the MU, social aspects and customization options that others seem to love so much. I guess I'll have to play it myself to find out.

I was tempted to grab a Switch to play this, but since I've already been waiting so long for a hardware revision then I'm sure I can wait a bit longer. I would have gladly borrowed my mate's unit if the save data was transferable, though...

And hey, the soundtrack appears to be god tier, at least!

[ColinAlonso]

I'm really interested to see how you all get on with it. I may be remembering wrong but I thought Fates got a good initial reception. So I got it when I got a 3DS but even though I finished Birthright, I never really got into it and left disappointed. I think there was a fair bit of backlash to Fates afterwards anyway. I'm still pretty curious about the series and may get Three Houses a bit down the line if the general reception stays this high.

I really dislike the anime tropes you usually get around these ‘military academy, but really it’s just a high school anime” settings (I never did get to the end of Valkyria 2)

Yeah, I made the worring comparison to Valkyria Chronicles 2 (the weakest main VC) too when I saw the setting.

[chase210]

I’m surprised by how much I love Three Houses. The only one of these I played before is awakening on 3DS and I never really got into it, but this feels right, it’s a joy to play.

[JadePhoenix]

I'm happy to see the positive reception this game is getting, on here and elsewhere. It's just a bit difficult for me to know how much of that would translate to my personal experience and expectations of the series, since most of the enthusiasm seems to come from either series newcomers or Awakening fans, both of which are probably looking at this game under a very different lens than me.

Maybe my perspective will help then, I've been a huge fan of the series since the fist English GBA game, which competes with Radiant Dawn for my favorite. I also quite enjoyed Awakening, and tolerated Fates, so that's where I'm coming from.

I've been having a fantastic time with 3 Houses so far. It's been out for less than 80 hours in the US, and I'm closing in on 25 played. It definitely shares some DNA with the 3DS games, but in ways that feel a lot more refined than before. For example, while there are 100s of support conversations, every one I've seen so far has been well written, and really made me feel like I was getting to know the characters. As far as I can tell, only your character can get a S-rank support, though that could change, and maybe it will be as cringy as the ones in Fates, but so far I'm optimistic. Another example is the class system, you can have any character be almost any class, but rather than change willy-nilly, you have to build up the weapon skills a class uses before you can change to it. This does lead it to be a lot heavier on micro-management than previous games, but I've enjoyed planning out what I want my students to learn. I have found the map designs to be pretty interesting, but to be fair, that wasn't one of the things that bothered me about the 3DS games anyway. The story has me totally hooked, and I can't wait to see where it's going. If I have one complaint, it's the difficulty, playing on normal has been laughably easy, but I haven't tried hard yet, and Nintendo has announced Manic is coming soon.

TL,DR: It takes a lot of ideas from the 3DS games, but executes them far, FAR better.

[KSubzero1000]

TL,DR: It takes a lot of ideas from the 3DS games, but executes them far, FAR better.

Nice, thanks for sharing!

I'm not a fan of S supports or of the general idea of turning the entire support mechanic into a dating sim, to be honest. Supports in the 3DS games tend to be either romantic or goofy with very few exceptions. I clearly prefer it the way it works in the GBA games: Keep the romantic endings as a sweet bonus for selected pairings during the epilogue and focus on actual content for the rest of the game. I can look past the existence of S supports if they're exclusive to Byleth and if the others are substantial enough, though.

Not a fan of loose class changes either. Do you know if there are class skills and/or other bonuses that are kept after a class change, though? Because that is what turns Awakening's endgame into a min-maxing grindfest and encourages the players to break the entire game with their overpowered units. Strategy requires hard data and hard data requires restrictions. I'm afraid that allowing every unit to change classes at will would trivialize the map design and break the difficulty curve.

Are there any freely available grinding options with infinite EXP?

Good to hear about the story. I haven't dared look up anything on other forums and such for fear of open spoilers, but I'll certainly be looking forward to your future impressions since we appear to have very similar experiences with the series. Although I'm definitely a PoR > RD person.

[JadePhoenix]

Nice, thanks for sharing!

I'm not a fan of S supports or of the general idea of turning the entire support mechanic into a dating sim, to be honest. Supports in the 3DS games tend to be either romantic or goofy with very few exceptions. I clearly prefer it the way it works in the GBA games: Keep the romantic endings as a sweet bonus for selected pairings during the epilogue and focus on actual content for the rest of the game. I can look past the existence of S supports if they're exclusive to Byleth and if the others are substantial enough, though.

I don't mind the idea in theory, it's not all that hard to believe that people put through the immense stress of war would try to find happiness with each other, but the execution was quite bad. 3 Houses takes place over a much longer period of time, so I think it will make sense, but I haven't gotten far enough to actually see it yet.

Not a fan of loose class changes either. Do you know if there are class skills and/or other bonuses that are kept after a class change, though? Because that is what turns Awakening's endgame into a min-maxing grindfest and encourages the players to break the entire game with their overpowered units. Strategy requires hard data and hard data requires restrictions. I'm afraid that allowing every unit to change classes at will would trivialize the map design and break the difficulty curve.

The vast majority of skills come from skill growth (weapon levels + a few others like riding), so they're interchangeable between classes, and the exact skills learned seems to be somewhat character-specific. Each class gets one mastery skill, but it takes quite a bit of grinding to earn. I don't know how easy/possible it will be to rank up skills once school ends, so I'm not sure if changing classes freely and earning all the abilities will be an option.

Are there any freely available grinding options with infinite EXP?

In normal mode, yes, in Hard, apparently no.

Good to hear about the story. I haven't dared look up anything on other forums and such for fear of open spoilers, but I'll certainly be looking forward to your future impressions since we appear to have very similar experiences with the series. Although I'm definitely a PoR > RD person.

From a design perspective, PoR is probably a better game, it's certainly better balanced, but I have way too much fun with how broken the characters in RD are .

[KSubzero1000]

From a design perspective, PoR is probably a better game, it's certainly better balanced, but I have way too much fun with how broken the characters in RD are .

Mate, tell me about it. The third tier promotions alone are unlike anything the series has seen before or since. Vanguard Ike wielding Urvan? No sleeve, no problem. Marshall Gatrie? An impenetrable cubic fortress of raw power. Dragonlord Haar? Death from Above. Trueblade Edward? Astra la Vista. Archsage Soren? More like Soren the White. And he came back to us now - at the turn of the tide.

The FE10 endgame is absolutely legendary. I just wish the rest of the game was better balanced and the various characters' availability was less restrictive, really. I also don't think the plot in Parts 3 and 4 quite lives up to its predecessor's potential, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, Radiant Dawn is superb. Have fun with Three Houses!

[Michiel K]

The game card version of this game was sold out everywhere, but a local etailer got a small stock in and I got mine in last Saturday. Since wife and kids are still on holiday, I had an unabashedly old fashioned video game Sunday and I put over 10 hours into this game, on Hard Classic. I picked the Black Eagles house for this first playthrough.

Can I say where it stands in my ranking of all the localised FE games yet? No, but there is nothing that aggravates me about it yet and funnily enough, all the fine tuned raising of your units you do via the school and social sim aspect is incredibly involving and has kept me hooked until now (something I wasn't expecting). Where in other games in the series I need to put the game down after winning a particularly stressful map (or losing a unit that I didn't want to lose and resetting and erasing 45 minutes of playtime) all this in-depth unit and resource management certainly increases my continuous, consecutive playtime with this one.

The tactics have dynamics that are very much their own. I was fearing that the absence of the weapon triangle would make the distinction between melee weapon classes meaningless, but the different abilities and skills that are attached to them prevent that and do retain that tactical combat puzzling game of positioning that typifies the series, in that - for example - an axe wielder will learn the helm splitter ability, which is effective against heavy armor, so you'll naturally will position axe fighters vs. armored knights, etc. Abilities and gambits are a very cool addition and I don't think the tactics are dumbed down from traditional FE. The focus is just different and there's possibly even more to consider.

[raisinbman]

Spoilers ahead and me putting this game to bed:

Spoiler: show

This is the best Fire Emblem has ever been. To think, just a couple entries ago, Fire Emblem, as a series would be dead. For those that don’t know, awakening was supposed to be the last Fire Emblem game, but of course, the sales and enthusiasm for that title proved that that shouldn’t stand. But before we talk about 3 houses, we should talk about Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Tokyo Mirage Sessions was the crossover between Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem. The game was decent enough, but I think more importantly, the relationship, and in my opinion, cross-pollination really took shape in the form of Three Houses. The Persona series in a way, has outgrown it’s predecessor, Shin Megami Tensei. Nintendo has taken pride in it’s relationship with Koei Tecmo, but I think the relationship Nintendo formed with Altus has done much more important things. While not all of the elements in three houses are new to the series, a lot of the inspiration seems to be from the persona series. A calendar with a deadline, young kids who do some growing over the course of the game, building relationships and skillsets. We see a bit of this in Tokyo Mirage, but it REALLY gets out there in Three Houses.



And of course, it draws from it’s own lineage – sometimes, Fire Emblem will have a timeskip with children, but here they’ve refined it to just being a timeskip. With the most recent entry before this, Fates, they experimented with different ‘versions’ entailing different stories. This was a bit divisive in that people felt it was ‘confusing’, but considering people will buy a colorswapped version of the same pokemon game, it makes me lose hope in humanity more than anything. Here, you get not 3, but 5 stories, with only 1 being DLC. I imagine the tagline of the game being three houses made it a bit easier for people to get the picture of what was happening. And the fact that this was one purchase could only have helped.



One of the most surprising parts of this was that the game is ENTIRELY voice acted. We’ve had voice acting in parts of Fire Emblem before, but not for EVERYTHING. Every piece of dialog, besides I want to say a paragraph of tutorial stuff, is voice acted. The way they were able to do that, even with a nameable MC, is really interesting. When talking about a specific item for a fetch question, they won’t actually name it – I remember one instance where various character ask for that ‘thing you have there’. And, otherwise, they’ve finally given you a name that isn’t dumb that they can call you – professor. It’s always a bit baffling when games want you to pretend to be in the game itself, especially as this game doesn’t offer skin tone changes, but having everyone give you a name that isn’t jarring is better than I’ve seen otherwise, with the likes of ‘hey you, new guy, etc.’. But back to voice acting, even NPCs who have one off lines are voice acted. The MC being a self-insert I’m torn on – it’s pretty standard for Japan but here, it is given a narrative reason and poked fun at enough. Also I had mentioned already you can’t choose skin tone, which is something you couldn’t do in fates, but could do in awakening.





Also the framing of you being a professor is pretty brilliant – oftentimes, it’s questionable why people are putting their lives in your hands and trusting you with huge decisions makes a bit more sense. But in you raising students and cultivating their stats, it’s all under one banner. It stands up there with when the series would have you as a off the field tacticitian.



Environments aren’t really anything to write home about, and I can’t remember if they’ve done this before as completely as it is here, but you can zoom in or out whenever you want, pretty much. Gone are the days of distinct sprites on the tactical map and those actually in battle. And it does get a bit silly, but it seems they’ve finally found their groove in animating movements and maneuvers in the same cool way they did back when they were sprites – as playable as the two radiance games were, their lackluster graphical transition to console was apparent.



Speaking on graphics, the other thing they’ve done really well have a uniform art styles – character portraits, actual models, cutscenes, and all that jazz are all in sync. Additionally, the art style has really matured into its cel-shaded style which looks GREAT. I think this is the most varied set of portraits we’ve got in fire emblem so far. I will say some of the faces, especially post timeskip seem to rely too much on the side-on view which didn’t turn out great.



The story was probably the most compelling part for me, in addition with how it was told. They do something I’d like to see all games strive to do – 99% of dialogue in this game matters. Whether it reflects back on something that just happens, or is a bit of worldbuilding, or alludes to something you’ll come to know in subsequent playthroughs as someone who’s already finished the game. I felt compelled to talk to everyone every month, even nameless NPCs to see what they had to say new. Some of it is a bit more silly, but as opposed to something a la pokemon ‘I like wearing shorts’, I didn’t know what to expect, and it was often interesting. And in learning more about characters backgrounds, you learn more about the world itself and are able to connect the dots even better. One thing to really praise the game for is subtlety – though the story does get melodramatic in places, and loves to cling to it’s anime-esque roots, there are numerous things that you deduce or are left guessing about, probably one of the strongest being you don’t even learn Claude’s real name in the game. I even ended up reading the in-game books in the library(took me a while because that tends to put me to sleep) just to try to get more context on everything. In being critical, I suppose you could look at the first half of the game before the timeskip with how it’s identical for most routes. I don’t mind this too much because it tees up to the second half which is mostly different for all routes. To the point where there’s 4 unique final bosses for each of the prescribed paths.



There are some strange moments that could probably have been solved by talking it out or even in ending the war(Eliminating the enemy leader when you have the chance, Edelguard’s dying words being ‘I wanted us to work together’ when they could’ve done that before she decided to sign her death warrant), but it’s definitely more coherent than fates and less of a silly end than awakening. Each character has motivations so that what they do make sense. This keeps them from being tropes(though some are worse than others, like Leonie), and even the more silly ones like Raphael have a REASON for being the way they are. Why doesn’t Raph’s shirt fit? He’s big on building muscle and sold all of his belongings to come to the academy. Edelguard didn’t have anyone to trust, so she took it upon herself to save and change the world. Claude took a huge gamble to save his peoples and saved everyone in the process. Dimitri sought justice but didn’t have the information Edelguard did, Rhea looked to guide the land but apparently is a living nuke. In essence, I say this fully admitting I did Golden Deer first, with Claude, he does the most good, gets rid of the root of the problem with the least casualties. Hidden agendas are overflowing in this game and in fact(Claude’s real name). If they don’t do the prequel/1000 years in the future thing, I think we’ll see a mix of them all, but yeah. It does REALLY seem like the game wants you to kill Edelgard, and is kind of strange you have to go out of your way to actually BE on Edelgard’s side, even in her own campaign. I thought Dimitri’s madness would actually be something, but it’s actually a more mature setup for it NOT to be. Naga knows they’ve had enough possession setups in the history of fire emblem. I’ve already went over how pretty much all dialogue is important, and that leads to a lot of information being distilled to you over time and in different methods. I think this goes towards Fire Emblem’s ethos of having everyone be named, for the most part the enemies you face are all there for a reason and purpose. Take the last boss fight of the golden deer for instance, you can just kill all of them and you know who Nemesis is, but IIRC the rest of them are the 10 elites, named and everything. Of course, this has been built over the past two entries with instead of the enemy being a faceless, irredeemable evil, just an opposing force with their own motivations and goals. Games like the last of us were lauded for doing such a thing, and I think equal praise should happen here.



And the most exciting thing about the story is how it was only about Fodland, so that leaves tons of possibilities for whatever’s next for when we return to the series.



Ease of the game has been the biggest sticking point as far as I can tell, but the thing is, Fire Emblem games were stupidly hard. In the trend of Japanese game DLC, the difficulty returns there if you’d really like it. But the way I see it, it’s more of a vehicle for me to enjoy the game. Putting hours into running a character through the coliseum, or doing a really hard map in old fire emblems only for you to make one miscalculation and your unit’s gone. Sure, you can continue, but eventually, you’ll probably end up stuck having to do a new game entirely. And there are systems in place for you to have difficulty should you choose it – classic ‘units die’ mode and difficulty up to lunatic. I’ve not done these things myself, but from what I understand, at that point you’re savescumming for good rolls, not just in combat, but on level up and unit acquisition. I don’t really have time for that. With the new time rewind mechanic, which was actually in Echoes first, it actually does get too easy, I’d say. But at the same time, they’ve introduced a new enemy type that reliably has the range of 2 and is often in the form of flyers, so this just may 100% be on me, but I don’t even understand how you’d combat some of these flying and tougher stone-carrying enemies when you can’t ‘rescue/team-up’ in this version of fire emblem. You do have a suite of abilities that are VERY useful, and mounted characters as well as some special units can act a second time, but even still. And finally, in terms of difficulty in Fire Emblem, although you’ll usually mow through 85% of units, later in the campaign, you’ll end up facing a boss or bosses that end up having the ability to kill your character reliably, which you don’t want if you want to see their ending in the epilogue, so I always try to prepare for that point.



Something else also to be praised is that this game, from what I’ve seen, has all viable characters. Oftentimes in fire emblem, you’ll get ‘trap’ characters that you shouldn’t invest in because they’re given to you early and their growth is bad. Here, of course there are better characters like Byleth, the lords, and Lysithea. But I think most importantly, you’ve got your choice in unit growth, class choice and everything. Of course, forcing someone into something they’re not suited for or that you’ve not trained them for can end up badly, and for some reason women can’t be fist-based archetypes(which really ruined my plans for the first run of the game).



I’ve put 300+ hours into this game(a couple were wasted trying to unlock Edelgard’s true path), but I still can’t say I’ve caned and rinsed it. There’s still weapon forging and support conversations to chase after. Instead of considering it part of my backlog, I like to think of it as something to look forward if I ever get to it. Even in an age where we can look up the youtube video or wikia of things, I still haven’t done that with the fire emblems I’ve played when I so readily will do it for, say, Kingdom Hearts III’s secret ending. It feels like earning the epilogues and support conversations are such a huge part of the game for me, I don’t want to rob myself of that(Though I may make an exception for couple/married endings because you can only get so many of those a playthrough, probably resulting in dozens of extra playthroughs). Also, getting certain components seemed to be restricted – I had the DLC which means I could do the ‘better’ skirmishes with more EXP and gold, but there were no beasts in these, so that means I couldn’t grab beast mats for forging. I probably could’ve when I was doing various new game pluses, but yeah.I was also unable to dive into battalions fully because the gating system of Authority seemed to be so tough, and their uses were limited anyway. But it does seem like the better abilities and abilities that aren’t elsewhere are in battalions. Should also probably be noted that battalions actually emphasize that this is a war instead of just a battlefield of duels.



This entry of the Fire Emblem series, also goes out of its way to break the rules. Granted, it’s a lot like Final Fantasy or Persona in that there may be connecting tissue but they generally aren’t sequels to one another. They sort of play a trick on you in that you’ve got the signature blue hair of a Fire Emblem MC, but it’s actually supposed to be green. I think at that point I kind of realized what type of ride I was in for on top of that, the MC is actually the God(dess). But also, they delve into WHY the MC is so silent and emotionless - I'm torn on it, but at least it isn't straight-up ignored. And there’s no manakete unit. And probably one of the biggest, there’s no combat triangle. It technically is still there with certain weapon skills, but it isn’t enforced as strictly as it was. Recruiting characters is actually done outside of battle(for the most part), which makes A LOT more sense than in traditional games where you’re just such a magnetic personality that if you talk to your named enemy, they’ll join you.




I will say it was a bit hard to follow the story with the 3 factions with two being named so similarly. This might just be on me, but because I played so much of it and over such a large period of time, any time they referred to the empire or the kingdom, I had to double-take, confusing the two. This is probably why you see, say, in star wars, the empire and the rebels. Two very distinct entities.



Something else that they really excelled at here is map objectives. for better or worse, fire emblem fans are used to two objectives being the majority of them: rout the enemy, and defeat the boss(which mixes with capture the objective 99% of the time). Here, I don’t have a proper number, but the only real time the objective is ‘rout the enemy’ is in optional maps that you actually want to do that in. Even moreso, bonus objectives both test your mettle and also allow you to do the bare minimum if they’re out of your reach. This does lead to a bit conflict of interest because in the past, must have items were in chests or in ‘optional’ objectives, but with crafting and bonus objectives generally not yielding into too important, they’re not as mandatory as they were in past games. In older fire emblems, you DEFINITELY could miss items that make your playtime so much more easier.



There was a bit of an issue with inappropriate student teacher relationships, but actually, none of the characters engage in actual relationships until the end of the game(which is 5+ years after the game starts, so everyone’s legal), and the MC actually doesn’t have to marry/partner with anyone. There’s also a ‘joke’ partnership and a completely platonic one(so I’m told. The guy’s married, so I assume that’s what that is).