Is this the most radically different FE game we've had (for a while)?

[nyainou]

I agree, Fates isn't that different from Awakening. The map design, specifically in Conquest, was way different and way more interesting comparatively, and that definitely didn't return for SoV, so..

3H feels very alien to me. I haven't picked up the game yet, also obviously, but its taken me until recently to even begin to warm up to the different features. I mean, they're interesting, and I like to the departure into something more.. Persona-y. But its just so strange for Fire Emblem, in my opinion. Its weird. 

[Humanoid]

I agree that in most respects it's barely different from Awakening, which is unsurprising. But as I said earlier, sometimes all it takes is one big change, and for me that was Attack Stance. Tactically it made for a huge change in how I played the game, and tactics are ultimately the meat of the game. The Three Houses changes I've seen don't really deviate from applying standard FE tactics that we've seen for decades as far as I'm aware - it reintroduces some previously shelved mechanics but ultimately I don't think it'll play much differently.

Now, there's a lot of changes outside the combat, but as far as I'm concerned that's just window dressing and once you strip it down the the basics, the determinant on whether the game is good or not ultimately depends on the combat, and the maps on which the combat occurs.

[Tenzen12]

It's more then that.

-Unbreakable weapons

-daggers

-new weapon triangle 

-buffing debuffing shenanigans 

-stances

-completely unheard classes

ect. 

[Druplesnubb]

SoV is less radical than it looks at first glance because so much of it is directly based on Gaiden. I'd say the biggest chnages are Combat Arts, Mila's Turnwheel and the expanded dungeons, the latter of which alone is admittedly enough to make SoV one of the more radical Fire Emblem games.

[Fabulously Olivier]

9 hours ago, Maimishou said:

That's a really surface level comparison. You should look at this article as it does a good job of explaining why comparing Three Houses to Persona is doing the game a disservice. It's spoiler free too so there's nothing to worry about in reading it.

I believe you're conflating comparing the game with Persona to saying it ripped off Persona, which is something of a leap, and requires context.

 

It's fair to say that Three Houses has taken inspiration from Persona and has some heavy structural similarities. That also isn't the same as saying that Three Houses is literally Persona 6. 

 

Games pull mechanics or take inspiration from one another all the time, and it helps our industry grow and improve. Personally, I am happy that some sort of similarity exists, surface level or otherwise. Fire Emblem and Persona are two of my favorite franchises, so I say what I say as a complement.

[Interdimensional Observer]

No idea about 3H, and won't for at least over a month (just to remind people that not everyone is rushing out to buy this day one).

But I wouldn't call Fates radical myself. It expands, but it fundamentally changes nothing of existential importance.

 

4 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

-daggers

PoR and RD did these first, albeit without the debuffing aspect.

-new weapon triangle 

Which is barely anything. It does affect gameplay, but this is a small change.

-buffing debuffing shenanigans 

Awakening began the massive buffing, ever heard of rallybots? Debuffing was added by Fates, but it isn't radical.

-stances

It's just a rebalanced and broken up version of Pair Up.

-completely unheard classes

Some of which however are just Hoshidan versions of normal FE classes. I'll give you Nohr Prince/cess, and Ninja, but the rest? Not really all that different. Some new weapon-movement type variations, but they play like any other class would, doing the exact same things. No special gimmicks.

 

Has FE had a Breath of the Wild? Or even a Super Mario 64/Ocarina of Time? Or Symphony of the Night? I don't know.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Matroska]

I've been playing it for a few days now - don't worry, I'm not going to mention any spoilers - and I would say that with this one they really went back to the drawing board. I'd say it definitely paid off. Now I know some people like Mekkah couldn't give a crap about the story and characters, that's the impression he gives anyway, but for people like me it'd be such a soulless experience if all there was to it was doing maths and placing little soldiers on the right tile. The series has always tried to characterise the units and contextualise the battles within a greater narrative. Traditionally, I think it's fair to say it was only mildly successful in that regard; the plots were clichéd and basic and so were the characters (9 and 10 might be exceptions, I haven't played them despite really wanting to but they do look very good in those regards).

Sure you might like those clichés, I certainly do with many of the characters, but it never felt like it really succeeded fully at that stuff. From what I've played so far, Three Houses really goes all out on this regard. It's not that the characters aren't still based on archetypes (e.g. Bernadetta is a typical NEET, you have your "ara ara" women, your tomboys, your smug and condescending nobles etc). But you spend a lot more time with each character, see them in a far wide variety of situations. Rather than knowing everything about them from about 3 brief support conversations, you see them change as people over a long period of time, usually on at least a weekly basis. The story itself grows more organically and isn't just "battle 1, set scene for battle 2, battle 2, set scene for battle 3, battle 3" and so on.

In terms of gameplay, I didn't like how Fates and Awakening had this kind of "swarm" gameplay, where it seems that IS were mindful that slow units are typically wastes of space (see FE4 for a particularly egregious example) so they made many units really fast. This resulted in it being harder to have battle lines and proper formations, you just paired up and weathered the storm of a swarm of enemies that could move around your formation and attack rear units in one turn. Three Houses - so far at least - has slowed it down. You actually get defensive blocks of units that you can position and face off against the enemy like a real battle rather than this mad skirmish where everyone is moving 8 tiles. You have gambits that can knock enemies back a tile, like the shove thing in 9. It leads to a feeling of actually being the general of an army rather than a man in the middle of a drunken fight after a football game.

The school stuff changes combat in the sense that you don't end up doing things you wouldn't do in a battle just to grind weapone exp or support ranks. You don't have to be torn between doing the strategically sound thing, and getting this guy to C-rank axes, or getting these to guys to B-rank support. You can still augment their progress but you don't get this odd meta game emerging. It shifts the focus to make the game feel more strategical rather than a kind of pseudo-battle where you're really babysitting units and trying to teach that guy over there to use a lance properly. Sorry for the wall of text, but even this is me holding back. There's a lot to be said about this game. 🙂

[bufkus]

It obviously is. Even disregarding the school stuff, the huge emphasis on individual characters is something previous installments have never accomplished. This is truly going to be a non-FE-like experience.

 

[bufkus]

7 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

It's more then that.

-Unbreakable weapons

-daggers

-new weapon triangle 

-buffing debuffing shenanigans 

-stances

-completely unheard classes

ect. 

lol these don't even make it radically different. these are just minor gameplay adjustments. the real differences come from the way the story is presented, the focus on a smaller cast, actually getting to know your characters, etc.

Fates was a small "radical change" compared to what 3H does. Honestly when I first saw 3H it didn't look like Fire Emblem to me anymore but it still looked like a game I would enjoy playing. Now after all the leaks, it still doesn't look like a Fire Emblem to me but it does look like a game that will be 100x better than Fates and 2-10x better than the non-Kaga FE games.

Edited July 25, 2019 by bufkus

[Tenzen12]

I would say it's other way around.