PeaceRibbon

Must you test my faith in humanity?

I could have SWORN I heard something about it in Silver Snow or maybe Crimson Flower... maybe the fact I was writing up past 9 changed my memory a little?

I pieced together most of it once I learned that the Nabateans were slain for the sake of acquiring weaponry . I thought it made sense of the odd, sinewy designs of the Heroes Relics.

Great point! If this was a theme they aimed to pull off from the start, I'd say the story is pretty much tailor made to maximize the effectiveness of the masks falling away. Strong build up in school phase to get you curious about what the characters are hiding, and big payoffs in war phase, and the transition to the war as well. This certainly puts The Edge of Dawn's lyrics more into perspective for me, and as a singer any deeper understanding of a song's text always helps me fall in love with it all over again.

Thank you for your support! Question I: To me personally, the presence of the professor and/or the black eagles doesn't particularly lighten the severity of Edelgard's actions. She knows she shouldn't be working with TWSITD but she's too convinced she needs their power to achieve her goals regardless of the route, and if anything her selling her soul to them (even with the intent of taking it back later) is perhaps the greatest sin she commits. Question II: I elected to play male on every run, mostly out of pure preference. Question III: I did in fact do no recruitment on every path! A big part of the game's fun for me was seeing which characters would be played by default and seeing who the recruitment only characters are. My final finding s that only Manuela, Hanneman, and Alois are exclusive to people who pursue them, and all the other characters join the party automatically in a least one route. I also killed as few Blue Lions as possible in each subsequent play-through, which made CF particularly devastating for me emotionally because a whopping six of them are mandatory targets. Question IV: The best way to play Three Houses is to pick the route you are interested in first, then to just make sure you do not play Silver Snow and Verdant Wind back to back. Ok in a less cop-out answer, I'd say go Blue Lions first for maximum impact during your first run of White Clouds, then play the other paths based on which mysteries you want elaborated on. SS for Byleth in particular, or VW for Fodlan's background as a whole. Sandwich CF between the two to keep the gameplay varied. Question V: The Big One: Picking an S support in Azure Moon was like trying to pick a favorite kid, and on subsequent playthroughs I'll likely mix it up a little, but on the first run I eventually chose Mercedes for being such a nice young lady I enjoyed spending time with. Black Eagles I probably had the least affinity for, but I found Dorothea to be really compelling as a love interest during SS, and I picked Bernadetta during CF for fun and Erica Mendez. Verdant Wind was a close race between Leonie and Marianne, but eventually I went with Marianne becuase while I found school phase Marianne to be frustratingly shy, her development in war phase really REALLY improved my perception of her.

So way WAY back in August I beat Three Houses for the first time and did a big compilation of my thoughts and feelings on the game which you can read here (mind that you don't necropost!). Myriad typos aside I was very happy to have gotten to discuss the game from that particular viewpoint, but now I come today to discuss the game from a more common standpoint, as someone who has beaten every route. Reading the previous post is not required, but I don't want to repeat everything I said about Azure Moon for the sake of those who have read it already, so if your interested go read up. If I only touch on it lightly, that'll be why. Allow me to also preface that I played the game in this order: Azure Moon, Silver Snow, Crimson Flower, and Verdant Wind. I went into my follow up playthroughs with the knowledge that Silver Snow and Verdant Wind would be similar, so I ordered them in such a way that I could complete the other stories efficiently without playing those back to back. If you feel that some of my opinions are influenced by this play order, that's because they probably were. Let's begin by talking about Silver Snow. This story wound up being my second favorite for one simple reason: Its emotional moments work really well. While obviously Azure Moon does the Flame Emperor reveal the best, it feels particularly weighty in the long term for Silver Snow, and I enjoyed traveling with the former Black Eagles in their quest to stop their power-hungry empress, and seeing them deal with the anxiety of attacking their former home. Another really strong element of this path is despite Byleth being a mostly silent protagonist, this route gives you the most options in cutscenes to flesh him/her out as the protagonist, particularly at the beginning and end of the time-skip where you can make Byleth filled with resolve to right the world's wrongs, or hesitant to point his blade at his former pupil, which pays off wonderfully at the conclusion to chapter 19. This also the most effective setup for the rescuing of Rhea because it truly feels like THE main goal in this route. And while the final battle against the archbishop and the berserk knights is about as comically contrived as it gets, I can't deny that it was a satisfyingly somber way to end the journey. All in all this was a fun route that served a lot of great drama and interesting character dynamics. I'll talk about Verdant Wind next due to it's heavy similarities to Silver Snow. Simply put, I felt that Claude, while an interesting character in his own right, really felt like he overstuffed the plot with his ambitions. While being the outsider is kind of Claude's thing, it was really hard to play through that story without feeling like he was motivated almost entirely out of furthering his personal plans, and while I don't think him particularly immoral, he felt a little too manipulative for me to enjoy him to the fullest (though his schemes are also kinda the point so maybe I'm proof that their writing is better than we realize). The Golden Deer as a group are a pretty strong crew too, but I felt a couple of them in particular weren't all that great until after the time-skip so their version of White Clouds definitely felt the most iffy. In regards to the final bout against Nemesis, while it only happening in Verdant Wind feels a bit like cutting off content from Silver Snow for the sake of variety, I think it's one of the best final maps in series history since it tests you on game-play skills not particularly unique to that chapter while spicing it up just enough to keep it interesting. Ultimately, Verdant Wind is fun, but there are so many details from the banner the army flies to the group's actual end goal that feel so much more cohesive in Silver Snow, and it truly deserved to be its own thing and explore its own ambitions. Finally we come to the ever lovely topic of Crimson Flower which definitely will not start a firestorm in the thread and everyone will just be friends sharing Ferdinand von Aiger and Bernadetta memes among one another. Jokes about this routes divisiveness aside, it probably comes as no surprise that I find this route to be the weakest, for two major reasons. The first being that the story tries way to hard to let Edelgard have her cake and eat it too, by which I mean it frames her as a hero through the whole tale even during her most insidious actions (*cough* covering for TWSITD's attack on Arianroad) and gives her none of the grim bravado that made her great as a villain. I 100% feel this story would have been a whole lot better if it just embraced the fact the player sided with the aggressor instead of trying to rationalize their actions. My main issue with the route however, is how jarring the character portrayals feel when put up against their counterparts in other routes. Before my point seems too contradictory in a discussion about a "player choices matter" game, think about my precious Dimitri for a minute. In every single route, his mental state always deteriorates into a vengeful shadow of his former, kinder self. While this is to a lesser extent in Crimson Flower, his character growth remains the same, and his personality fate is only altered significantly as the story progresses. Now take Edelgard, whose heart grows cold and detached from the idea of recourse as the war goes on in the other three routes. In Crimson Flower, Byleth chooses to side with her, and after being usrpers-in-arms for only a month before Byleth goes dark for five years, five long years where her heart had plenty of time to grow icy, teacher shows back up and surprise, she's a totally different, gentler, and more likable person now! Imagine if THIS was how they handled Dimitri in Azure Moon, a character you have to watch at his absolute lowest before he gets better. I understand that Edelgard frequently shows a certain kind of affinity for Byleth in particular, but if that's the only justification we have for her change in personality then we have to just accept her entire character is written around Byleth's allegiances, and I don't like that much at all. This also applies to all of the Black Eagles, who really should have fixed sidings with either the Resistance Army or the Adrestian Empire based on what they truly believe, rather than just moseying wherever their teacher goes (though there are exceptions to this). The only character who makes any sense at all in this whiplash of personalities is Rhea, and viewing this story as a "what if" scenario for her character development makes her screen-time interesting, but its just too little too late. Again, I stress that I know this is a choices matter game, but when the other routes give you time to see the consequences unfold, this route just feels way too inconsistent in its use of that premise. So in conclusion, do I still think this is the best Fire Emblem game with the best story out of any of them? Well, yeah, I really do. I know I was really critical of the other routes in this write-up but honestly I do it out of a genuine place of love for the game's setting and characters, and the gameplay is still my favorite in a Fire Emblem to date. Each route is worth playing in its own small way, and I have not written this article to say your favor for any one route is wrong. We can only hope that the writers of this game take note of both the triumphs and stumbles of Three Houses' story and make something even more special for the next non-remake entry, but this is definitely a high bar to follow up on. Let me know about your thoughts on the Three Houses story below, ask for any further opinions, and PLEASE let me know how bad my taste is!

I'd say your initial appraisal is about right. I haven't played through all of golden deer yet, but I can already tell that if I just want to check out and just Failnaught my way to more story cutscenes, I could probably do that. I might even do that cause I'd really like to beat verdant wind and post a big extended thoughts on the game here before 2020 in case the discussion dries up.

A remake announcement feels almost guaranteed, considering the series loves updating its older entries. No way to highlight your past quite like giving it some polish, so that it sparkles brilliantly even among its younger siblings.

Why exactly would we need men in power in order to execute on an effective political drama? I'm of the mindset that if a story is written well, a character's sex will only effect their execution in terms of physical capabilities and basic biological and cultural inclinations (or noticeable negligence of them). Not trying to drag the thread into a culture war or anything, just curious what you think this change would really do for a future Fire Emblem narrative.

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Donkey Kong. I don't think I need to say anything else.

I definitely feel what you're saying with the whole blizzard thing, and in some ways it might be wrong to totally cut off from them in that there are still a lot of good people working at the company (at least if the campus demonstrations are anything to go off) who need to eat too, but at the end of the day they too would probably appreciate the stand being taken more. I've taken off all my blizzard games alongside friends, and while it pains me to not be able to play Anduin "MOBA Perfection" Wrynn in Heroes of the Storm, they might clean up their act in time, and I'll come back.

5 an hour to play three houses? That's gonna rack up fast, especially if she takes her time. Have fun!

Personally I don't find these chapters difficult, but they do waste your time. On Bernadetta and Petra's map for example, if you aim for the escape goal you are basically punished for trying to engage with the chapter in a way the game told you was ok. It's more deceptive than anything and if you are tricked you're better off just resetting the whole thing and going for the rout from turn one. I'd very much like these shifting objectives to be implemented more gracefully in the future.

Personally I'd like to see a new setting as often as possible with this series because getting a new world almost every time is part of the fun of Fire Emblem in my opinion. Remake vote goes to Elibe because I'd love to see one of my favorite FE eras brought to the modern day again in full force. Remaster goes to the Radiance series because we who have budgeting skills would also like to play those games. 😛 For Fodlan's future, I'd love to see them define a single route as canon if only to watch the fallout from the declaration, even knowing full well I'd be part of the problem if they dare to not choose my favorite route (I mean, I still need to play through Verdant Wind before my favorite is technically cemented, but I'm not holding my breath on it beating Azure Moon's unreasonably high standard).

The Gray Sparrows. A minor house established to serve students looking learn protective tactics and excel at minimizing casualties on the battlefield. Faith magic and Priest is the clear winner in terms of focus subjects, but classes such as Armored Knight, Cavalier, and Pegasus Knight see frequent study as well, thanks to the former's ability to bear enemy attacks, and the latter two's specialty for rushing in to aid struggling allies. The students of the Gray Sparrows would be accepting of students from any region or birth, but given its values I'd imagine Kingdom residents would most often get behind it's chivalrous emphasis on serving the needs of fellow soldiers first, with other students of more conscientious dispositions filling out the rest of its ranks. This obviously would shape the part 2 section of the game to be squarely against the Imperial advance, though perhaps not without a few patriots leaving to support their home depending on the class' ultimate composition.

Discussion's over everyone. Go home.

Chupacabra is fun to say! Less fun to describe...

YOU DARE LURE ME IN WITH CLICKBAIT YOU HEATHEN?! ... Thank you. I needed this today.

Understandable. I wouldn't think you though yourself totally right based on your opening, I just wanted to provide a different perspective so we can all examine the discussion more thoroughly, plus I just plain had something I felt was worth saying.

It's kind of weird for me trying to discuss these characters and people because I have spent a particularly large amount of my life around someone diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and to this day thinking of him as having a mental anomaly sounds absurd. Sure, he may have some particularly strong areas of interest, but who doesn't these days? I've interpreted Felix in particular as a character with genuinely good goals who struggles to express them due to his extremely jaded perspective on Faerghus culture and values. I think it makes him interesting, and slapping a medical label on him would cheapen his agency in the story because it would lessen our ability to see his behavior as being more than just an effect of some condition. I won't attempt to apply this line of reasoning to any of the other characters at this juncture because my experience with those other conditions is exponentially lesser, but maybe you can find similar conclusions on your own.

I ran Swordmaster Felix with a Gauntlet sub weapon and can confirm that this is basically what happens if you let Mr. Fraldarius punch people. It's awesome. Speaking of gauntlets though, if you train Dedue in Grappler early on his proficiency scales really well into the late game, to the point that even as a fortress knight having him just equip his gauntlets makes him super scary on all phases.

I sure do love watching memes die before my very eyes. I mean, will anyone make this joke after today?

I kinda have always had a little bit of a rough relationship with sauces due to their ability to overpower a meal if not used sparingly, though I do enjoy ranch sauce when the mood strikes me.