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Now that some time has passed, I'd like to give my thoughts on Three Houses again.


Dinar87
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Your thoughts on Three Houses.  

124 members have voted

  1. 1. How does it compare to the rest of the games in the series?

    • The best
      19
    • It's pretty damn good
      90
    • It's ok I guess...
      10
    • Mediocre
      4
    • Worse than most
      1


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On 9/30/2019 at 8:53 PM, Icelerate said:

I fail to see how Lyon is a worse villain than Lonato and Miklan. Lonato and Miklan are among the best one chapter villains in the series, I'll give them that. But Sacred Stones has a decent roster of one chapter villains too such as Orson and Carlyle. 

I wasn't comparing them to Lyon, but rather the one-off villains in Sacred Stones like Gheb.  

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Unfortunately have to add myself to the unpopular side for this one. If not for SoV, this game would be my least favorite Fire Emblem I've played. It would probably my biggest disappointment of the year if not for the mess going on with Pokemon right now.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've been sitting on these opinions for about 2 months and have yet to air them. I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

 

Gameplay:

First up, I don't like the lack of the weapon triangle. All the melee weapon types feel too similar without it and it makes choosing engagements feel less strategic because it hardly matters which weapon you use. Gambits feel awkward, as I don't really like the idea of free super attacks that can't be countered. Some are OP like Stride or Blaze too, while the rest I rarely used besides for breaking monster shields and fighting the Death Knight. The combat arts are completely unnecessary on Hard and Maddening you're stuck using them just because your normal damage is so terrible early game against the bloated enemies. Action speed and weight returning just feel like they over complicate how doubling is calculated rather than actually adding depth. Weapon durability is nothing but a hassle this time. You get so many uses for every weapon and it's so easy to repair/recharge anything, even relics, that it adds nothing but the busywork repairing things between battles.

For the maps, I don't think they're as bad as SoV, where they were just abysmal, but they still feel mostly poor and unmemorable in this game. Even years later I can remember the majority of Conquest's maps and enjoyed most of them, but the 3H maps are so bland I could barely remember them after finishing a play session most times. The reuse of maps for multiple paralogues also felt incredibly lazy, or just another sign this game had an oddly low budget.

I really dislike the new class/skill system as well. While it sounds cool on paper I can't stand the execution and needing to grind and tutor skills to unlock classes, then master a class to get its skill. I had far more fun in the 3DS games simply sealing into classes and collecting skills by leveling up a few times. It is just pure tedium to try and grind class/skill exp during a map and needing to max out to mastery for the skills can take prohibitively long. Even with the knowledge gem it's just a complete slog and turned me away from wanting to do any fun class changes or experimentation with my characters.

The monastery segments are another thing I liked on paper, and for the first while of the game it was a pretty neat addition. However by the timeskip I was already sick of it and it'd become just a chore to do every month. Sure, you could skip it, but you miss out on quite a lot if you do. That's missed support points, student happiness for tutoring time, items and professor exp. Even things like the fishing are just tedious, and I usually like fishing in games. Sitting there for 20 minutes at a time doing the minigame every month to go through all the bait for professor points was something I started to dread by a few months in. And again, you miss out on a lot if you don't take advantage of it to get the professor points out of it, since it counts for a ton. NG+ letting you buy your ranks back doesn't change you had to slog through it the first time.

The difficulty is also totally out of whack in this game. Hard is so easy it's a complete bore to play, meanwhile Maddening jumped straight past good challenge to nonsense stat bloat and exp gimping which is just the other extreme of not being fun. Conquest's difficulties were much better balanced and more fair, even on lunatic.(minus the final chapter was a bit much without cheesing it) One-shotting everything on Hard and turtling to kill 1 enemy with 5 of your units on Maddening are equally lame balancing. I'm not a fan of the return of the Turnwheel feature either with Sothis' time skip, since that's another thing that cuts down on the thinking and risk management you need to do when you have so many do-overs to cheese with.

 

Story/characters:

While the game's better written than Fates(not hard to do) I still didn't care for the story. I didn't care for any of the main lords, Sothis, or even Byleth and just didn't feel invested in what was going on at all. The game doesn't even give you much time with some like Sothis and Jeralt, and failing to make me feel attached to these characters also just made what was supposed to be emotional moments completely fall flat. The villains that were most interesting, the Slitherers, are mostly sidelined by the Edelgard vs Dimitri conflict which was a disappointment. I was pretty on board with the story leading up to the the time skip, but when it hit the parts for Kronya, Jeralt, Solon, Sothis and Edelgard it was a series of events that just sucked my interest away with how bad I felt those all were.

I found all the paths overall pretty unsatisfying, since I didn't really like the lords enough to want to side with them. Claude's the only one who's really sane but he also just feels like a 3rd wheel added so IS could round the game out to 3 houses rather than 2. It really made me wish for a Revelations-like choice to unite them instead or something, since individually they all felt like sides I didn't want to support and it feels like you have next to no agency in what's going on despite how supposedly important you are.

I think the students are okay, though I fail to see how these characters are as realistic as they've been hyped up to be, besides Dorothea just because of the way she talks is pretty natural. They don't feel much deeper to me than the commonly complained about one-note 3DS characters, just the supports are longer and fully voiced so they have a better presentation. That said, I don't mind that in of itself since I like a lot of the 3DS characters despite not being that deep, rather I wasn't attached to these as I just didn't find their quirks very likable. Hilda's laziness, Linhardt's sleeping, Sylvain's womanizing, Ferdinand's noble thing, etc. Even after hearing all their sad story backgrounds it didn't really make up for it. I'm sure plenty who disliked the 3DS characters instead had problems with Felicia's plate dropping, Sumias clumsiness, etc., but I just feel the other way around.

Byleth also felt like a rather poor avatar, and while I get the Sothis thing supposedly suppresses his emotions it's pretty bad having most supports with Byleth feel like the other characters are just talking to a wall. At least Robin and even Corrin had some personality. Byleth's personality is like a piece of cardboard. I was never a fan of Corrin either with how whiny he was, but I'd still take him over this.

Visuals:

Since this has been a controversial aspect since pre-release trailers this gets its own section. This was my initial gripe with the game since the first trailers came out, though I remained hopeful about the gameplay. I was in the camp that thought the game looked really rough, and despite all the people defending it would be cleaned up a lot by release it barely was. The graphics are still disappointing for a 2019 Switch title and I'd say FE Warriors may even look slightly better than this does despite being an even lower budget side game from 2 years ago. Lots of muddy textures(even right on characters' armor),  serious anti-aliasing issues sometimes, animations manage to have less weight and fluidity to them than even the 3DS games, etc. And while I'm glad the artist did indeed clean up some of their work compared to the initial footage, I still don't like this otome artist's style nearly as much as Kozaki or even Hidari.

-----

Overall really hoped to love the game and definitely gave it a fair shake in trying. I wanted to be part of the crowd that's been adoring the game but I can't get on board for this one. I can forgive a poor story much easier than poor gameplay, which is why Conquest is still my favorite FE by a mile, but here I just disliked both and the gameplay especially. I hoped Maddening would change things for me with the game actually getting some challenge in it, but like I said they just jumped to a different type of unfun instead.

I had hoped SoV was a fluke with its gameplay, as it was a remake of Gaiden, but it feels like 3H just doubled down on that gameplay and took it further. If this is how FE games' gameplay will be from here on out I may not purchase the next one. I feel like 3H makes for a better visual novel than a strategy game and I genuinely prefer the gameplay of Heroes to this, which is kind of sad.

Also, while that wall of text makes it sound like it I want to say don't hate the game, just it was a big let down for me. I think it's not an objectively bad game, but it's not one for me. I still like some things such as how archers are more unique this time around(and not just have absurd range like SoV), it has probably the best world building and lore of an FE game(direct opposite of Conquest on that one) and some characters like Dorothea are pretty damn good and actually do feel realistic.

 

 

Edited by Alkaid
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6 hours ago, Alkaid said:

Unfortunately have to add myself to the unpopular side for this one. If not for SoV, this game would be my least favorite Fire Emblem I've played. It would probably my biggest disappointment of the year if not for the mess going on with Pokemon right now.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've been sitting on these opinions for about 2 months and have yet to air them. I'll spoiler it.

  Hide contents

 

Gameplay:

First up, I don't like the lack of the weapon triangle. All the melee weapon types feel too similar without it and it makes choosing engagements feel less strategic because it hardly matters which weapon you use. Gambits feel awkward, as I don't really like the idea of free super attacks that can't be countered. Some are OP like Stride or Blaze too, while the rest I rarely used besides for breaking monster shields and fighting the Death Knight. The combat arts are completely unnecessary on Hard and Maddening you're stuck using them just because your normal damage is so terrible early game against the bloated enemies. Action speed and weight returning just feel like they over complicate how doubling is calculated rather than actually adding depth. Weapon durability is nothing but a hassle this time. You get so many uses for every weapon and it's so easy to repair/recharge anything, even relics, that it adds nothing but the busywork repairing things between battles.

For the maps, I don't think they're as bad as SoV, where they were just abysmal, but they still feel mostly poor and unmemorable in this game. Even years later I can remember the majority of Conquest's maps and enjoyed most of them, but the 3H maps are so bland I could barely remember them after finishing a play session most times. The reuse of maps for multiple paralogues also felt incredibly lazy, or just another sign this game had an oddly low budget.

I really dislike the new class/skill system as well. While it sounds cool on paper I can't stand the execution and needing to grind and tutor skills to unlock classes, then master a class to get its skill. I had far more fun in the 3DS games simply sealing into classes and collecting skills by leveling up a few times. It is just pure tedium to try and grind class/skill exp during a map and needing to max out to mastery for the skills can take prohibitively long. Even with the knowledge gem it's just a complete slog and turned me away from wanting to do any fun class changes or experimentation with my characters.

The monastery segments are another thing I liked on paper, and for the first while of the game it was a pretty neat addition. However by the timeskip I was already sick of it and it'd become just a chore to do every month. Sure, you could skip it, but you miss out on quite a lot if you do. That's missed support points, student happiness for tutoring time, items and professor exp. Even things like the fishing are just tedious, and I usually like fishing in games. Sitting there for 20 minutes at a time doing the minigame every month to go through all the bait for professor points was something I started to dread by a few months in. And again, you miss out on a lot if you don't take advantage of it to get the professor points out of it, since it counts for a ton. NG+ letting you buy your ranks back doesn't change you had to slog through it the first time.

The difficulty is also totally out of whack in this game. Hard is so easy it's a complete bore to play, meanwhile Maddening jumped straight past good challenge to nonsense stat bloat and exp gimping which is just the other extreme of not being fun. Conquest's difficulties were much better balanced and more fair, even on lunatic.(minus the final chapter was a bit much without cheesing it) One-shotting everything on Hard and turtling to kill 1 enemy with 5 of your units on Maddening are equally lame balancing. I'm not a fan of the return of the Turnwheel feature either with Sothis' time skip, since that's another thing that cuts down on the thinking and risk management you need to do when you have so many do-overs to cheese with.

 

Story/characters:

While the game's better written than Fates(not hard to do) I still didn't care for the story. I didn't care for any of the main lords, Sothis, or even Byleth and just didn't feel invested in what was going on at all. The game doesn't even give you much time with some like Sothis and Jeralt, and failing to make me feel attached to these characters also just made what was supposed to be emotional moments completely fall flat. The villains that were most interesting, the Slitherers, are mostly sidelined by the Edelgard vs Dimitri conflict which was a disappointment. I was pretty on board with the story leading up to the the time skip, but when it hit the parts for Kronya, Jeralt, Solon, Sothis and Edelgard it was a series of events that just sucked my interest away with how bad I felt those all were.

I found all the paths overall pretty unsatisfying, since I didn't really like the lords enough to want to side with them. Claude's the only one who's really sane but he also just feels like a 3rd wheel added so IS could round the game out to 3 houses rather than 2. It really made me wish for a Revelations-like choice to unite them instead or something, since individually they all felt like sides I didn't want to support and it feels like you have next to no agency in what's going on despite how supposedly important you are.

I think the students are okay, though I fail to see how these characters are as realistic as they've been hyped up to be, besides Dorothea just because of the way she talks is pretty natural. They don't feel much deeper to me than the commonly complained about one-note 3DS characters, just the supports are longer and fully voiced so they have a better presentation. That said, I don't mind that in of itself since I like a lot of the 3DS characters despite not being that deep, rather I wasn't attached to these as I just didn't find their quirks very likable. Hilda's laziness, Linhardt's sleeping, Sylvain's womanizing, Ferdinand's noble thing, etc. Even after hearing all their sad story backgrounds it didn't really make up for it. I'm sure plenty who disliked the 3DS characters instead had problems with Felicia's plate dropping, Sumias clumsiness, etc., but I just feel the other way around.

Byleth also felt like a rather poor avatar, and while I get the Sothis thing supposedly suppresses his emotions it's pretty bad having most supports with Byleth feel like the other characters are just talking to a wall. At least Robin and even Corrin had some personality. Byleth's personality is like a piece of cardboard. I was never a fan of Corrin either with how whiny he was, but I'd still take him over this.

Visuals:

Since this has been a controversial aspect since pre-release trailers this gets its own section. This was my initial gripe with the game since the first trailers came out, though I remained hopeful about the gameplay. I was in the camp that thought the game looked really rough, and despite all the people defending it would be cleaned up a lot by release it barely was. The graphics are still disappointing for a 2019 Switch title and I'd say FE Warriors may even look slightly better than this does despite being an even lower budget side game from 2 years ago. Lots of muddy textures(even right on characters' armor),  serious anti-aliasing issues sometimes, animations manage to have less weight and fluidity to them than even the 3DS games, etc. And while I'm glad the artist did indeed clean up some of their work compared to the initial footage, I still don't like this otome artist's style nearly as much as Kozaki or even Hidari.

-----

Overall really hoped to love the game and definitely gave it a fair shake in trying. I wanted to be part of the crowd that's been adoring the game but I can't get on board for this one. I can forgive a poor story much easier than poor gameplay, which is why Conquest is still my favorite FE by a mile, but here I just disliked both and the gameplay especially. I hoped Maddening would change things for me with the game actually getting some challenge in it, but like I said they just jumped to a different type of unfun instead.

I had hoped SoV was a fluke with its gameplay, as it was a remake of Gaiden, but it feels like 3H just doubled down on that gameplay and took it further. If this is how FE games' gameplay will be from here on out I may not purchase the next one. I feel like 3H makes for a better visual novel than a strategy game and I genuinely prefer the gameplay of Heroes to this, which is kind of sad.

Also, while that wall of text makes it sound like it I want to say don't hate the game, just it was a big let down for me. I think it's not an objectively bad game, but it's not one for me. I still like some things such as how archers are more unique this time around(and not just have absurd range like SoV), it has probably the best world building and lore of an FE game(direct opposite of Conquest on that one) and some characters like Dorothea are pretty damn good and actually do feel realistic.

 

 

Harsh opinion. While I personally like the game a lot, I can somewhat respect what you're written here. One thing I'd like to bring up though: fishing for 20 minutes each month really isn't necessary. I hit A+ in Crimson Flower of all routes without doing that, instead only fishing during Fish of Mystery and Golden Fish events.

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15 hours ago, Alkaid said:

Unfortunately have to add myself to the unpopular side for this one. If not for SoV, this game would be my least favorite Fire Emblem I've played. It would probably my biggest disappointment of the year if not for the mess going on with Pokemon right now.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've been sitting on these opinions for about 2 months and have yet to air them. I'll spoiler it.

  Hide contents

 

Gameplay:

First up, I don't like the lack of the weapon triangle. All the melee weapon types feel too similar without it and it makes choosing engagements feel less strategic because it hardly matters which weapon you use. Gambits feel awkward, as I don't really like the idea of free super attacks that can't be countered. Some are OP like Stride or Blaze too, while the rest I rarely used besides for breaking monster shields and fighting the Death Knight. The combat arts are completely unnecessary on Hard and Maddening you're stuck using them just because your normal damage is so terrible early game against the bloated enemies. Action speed and weight returning just feel like they over complicate how doubling is calculated rather than actually adding depth. Weapon durability is nothing but a hassle this time. You get so many uses for every weapon and it's so easy to repair/recharge anything, even relics, that it adds nothing but the busywork repairing things between battles.

For the maps, I don't think they're as bad as SoV, where they were just abysmal, but they still feel mostly poor and unmemorable in this game. Even years later I can remember the majority of Conquest's maps and enjoyed most of them, but the 3H maps are so bland I could barely remember them after finishing a play session most times. The reuse of maps for multiple paralogues also felt incredibly lazy, or just another sign this game had an oddly low budget.

I really dislike the new class/skill system as well. While it sounds cool on paper I can't stand the execution and needing to grind and tutor skills to unlock classes, then master a class to get its skill. I had far more fun in the 3DS games simply sealing into classes and collecting skills by leveling up a few times. It is just pure tedium to try and grind class/skill exp during a map and needing to max out to mastery for the skills can take prohibitively long. Even with the knowledge gem it's just a complete slog and turned me away from wanting to do any fun class changes or experimentation with my characters.

The monastery segments are another thing I liked on paper, and for the first while of the game it was a pretty neat addition. However by the timeskip I was already sick of it and it'd become just a chore to do every month. Sure, you could skip it, but you miss out on quite a lot if you do. That's missed support points, student happiness for tutoring time, items and professor exp. Even things like the fishing are just tedious, and I usually like fishing in games. Sitting there for 20 minutes at a time doing the minigame every month to go through all the bait for professor points was something I started to dread by a few months in. And again, you miss out on a lot if you don't take advantage of it to get the professor points out of it, since it counts for a ton. NG+ letting you buy your ranks back doesn't change you had to slog through it the first time.

The difficulty is also totally out of whack in this game. Hard is so easy it's a complete bore to play, meanwhile Maddening jumped straight past good challenge to nonsense stat bloat and exp gimping which is just the other extreme of not being fun. Conquest's difficulties were much better balanced and more fair, even on lunatic.(minus the final chapter was a bit much without cheesing it) One-shotting everything on Hard and turtling to kill 1 enemy with 5 of your units on Maddening are equally lame balancing. I'm not a fan of the return of the Turnwheel feature either with Sothis' time skip, since that's another thing that cuts down on the thinking and risk management you need to do when you have so many do-overs to cheese with.

 

Story/characters:

While the game's better written than Fates(not hard to do) I still didn't care for the story. I didn't care for any of the main lords, Sothis, or even Byleth and just didn't feel invested in what was going on at all. The game doesn't even give you much time with some like Sothis and Jeralt, and failing to make me feel attached to these characters also just made what was supposed to be emotional moments completely fall flat. The villains that were most interesting, the Slitherers, are mostly sidelined by the Edelgard vs Dimitri conflict which was a disappointment. I was pretty on board with the story leading up to the the time skip, but when it hit the parts for Kronya, Jeralt, Solon, Sothis and Edelgard it was a series of events that just sucked my interest away with how bad I felt those all were.

I found all the paths overall pretty unsatisfying, since I didn't really like the lords enough to want to side with them. Claude's the only one who's really sane but he also just feels like a 3rd wheel added so IS could round the game out to 3 houses rather than 2. It really made me wish for a Revelations-like choice to unite them instead or something, since individually they all felt like sides I didn't want to support and it feels like you have next to no agency in what's going on despite how supposedly important you are.

I think the students are okay, though I fail to see how these characters are as realistic as they've been hyped up to be, besides Dorothea just because of the way she talks is pretty natural. They don't feel much deeper to me than the commonly complained about one-note 3DS characters, just the supports are longer and fully voiced so they have a better presentation. That said, I don't mind that in of itself since I like a lot of the 3DS characters despite not being that deep, rather I wasn't attached to these as I just didn't find their quirks very likable. Hilda's laziness, Linhardt's sleeping, Sylvain's womanizing, Ferdinand's noble thing, etc. Even after hearing all their sad story backgrounds it didn't really make up for it. I'm sure plenty who disliked the 3DS characters instead had problems with Felicia's plate dropping, Sumias clumsiness, etc., but I just feel the other way around.

Byleth also felt like a rather poor avatar, and while I get the Sothis thing supposedly suppresses his emotions it's pretty bad having most supports with Byleth feel like the other characters are just talking to a wall. At least Robin and even Corrin had some personality. Byleth's personality is like a piece of cardboard. I was never a fan of Corrin either with how whiny he was, but I'd still take him over this.

Visuals:

Since this has been a controversial aspect since pre-release trailers this gets its own section. This was my initial gripe with the game since the first trailers came out, though I remained hopeful about the gameplay. I was in the camp that thought the game looked really rough, and despite all the people defending it would be cleaned up a lot by release it barely was. The graphics are still disappointing for a 2019 Switch title and I'd say FE Warriors may even look slightly better than this does despite being an even lower budget side game from 2 years ago. Lots of muddy textures(even right on characters' armor),  serious anti-aliasing issues sometimes, animations manage to have less weight and fluidity to them than even the 3DS games, etc. And while I'm glad the artist did indeed clean up some of their work compared to the initial footage, I still don't like this otome artist's style nearly as much as Kozaki or even Hidari.

-----

Overall really hoped to love the game and definitely gave it a fair shake in trying. I wanted to be part of the crowd that's been adoring the game but I can't get on board for this one. I can forgive a poor story much easier than poor gameplay, which is why Conquest is still my favorite FE by a mile, but here I just disliked both and the gameplay especially. I hoped Maddening would change things for me with the game actually getting some challenge in it, but like I said they just jumped to a different type of unfun instead.

I had hoped SoV was a fluke with its gameplay, as it was a remake of Gaiden, but it feels like 3H just doubled down on that gameplay and took it further. If this is how FE games' gameplay will be from here on out I may not purchase the next one. I feel like 3H makes for a better visual novel than a strategy game and I genuinely prefer the gameplay of Heroes to this, which is kind of sad.

Also, while that wall of text makes it sound like it I want to say don't hate the game, just it was a big let down for me. I think it's not an objectively bad game, but it's not one for me. I still like some things such as how archers are more unique this time around(and not just have absurd range like SoV), it has probably the best world building and lore of an FE game(direct opposite of Conquest on that one) and some characters like Dorothea are pretty damn good and actually do feel realistic.

 

 

Hey, I'm not alone!

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On 10/3/2019 at 1:34 AM, Alkaid said:
Spoiler

The villains that were most interesting, the Slitherers, are mostly sidelined by the Edelgard vs Dimitri conflict which was a disappointment.

 

Spoiler

How are the Slitherers more interesting, just curious? 

 

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38 minutes ago, Icelerate said:
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How are the Slitherers more interesting, just curious? 

 

Spoiler

How were they not? A basically Illuminati-like secret society behind the scenes, experimenting on people to create more powerful crest users, killing and replacing people, making crest monsters, etc. That was all a lot more interesting and villainous than Edelgard's joke of a villain reveal and hard-headed war to remove crests. I could not have cared less about the conflict between her and Dimitri. I'd have much rather seen more focus on fighting the Slitherers as they had so much potential and a better build up as antagonists but they were just wasted for the most part.

 

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I thought the slitherers were the worst characters in the game, although I do think they had some potential (unlike most FE cults). The game seemed much more interested in making sure we knew they were evil than exploring their motives or even their actions. 

Spoiler

I even agree that in principle, their experiments on Edelgard and Lysithea should have been interesting! But the game seems to barely care about why they did it (to create a super-soldier who had no loyalty to them? Questionable plan), only that it was an Evil Thing to do and how it influenced Edelgard's belief system.

 

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4 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I thought the slitherers were the worst characters in the game, although I do think they had some potential (unlike most FE cults). The game seemed much more interested in making sure we knew they were evil than exploring their motives or even their actions. 

  Hide contents

I even agree that in principle, their experiments on Edelgard and Lysithea should have been interesting! But the game seems to barely care about why they did it (to create a super-soldier who had no loyalty to them? Questionable plan), only that it was an Evil Thing to do and how it influenced Edelgard's belief system.

 

They're the worst because the writers evidently just didn't care about them, which is why I said it was a total waste of the potential they had and why I was so disappointed they did so little with it. How Kronya or Solon were completely wasted was just terrible, and then(spoiler)

Spoiler

Dimitri killing off some of the higher rank Slitherers off-screen in his path made it clear the writers didn't really care about them relative to the rest of the story. Plus even when you're working with them on Edelgard's path they still hardly have a role till you turn on them later, and your Byleth doesn't get the option to confront Edelgard past her "I need their strength for now" answer despite these people just assassinated your dad and tried to send you to the shadow realm. They could easily have played more of a role and made things more interesting, but the writers just weren't interested I guess.

I would have much rather seen them better developed and explained and given more of a focus as your enemy. Instead the whole war scenario felt forced and I couldn't care about either Edelgard or Dimitri as antagonists since I wasn't invested in supporting whatever side I was on against them. The Slitherers getting more time in Claude's path was something but it was still just a side thing to the main conflict.

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1 hour ago, Alkaid said:

They're the worst because the writers evidently just didn't care about them, which is why I said it was a total waste of the potential they had and why I was so disappointed they did so little with it. How Kronya or Solon were completely wasted was just terrible, and then(spoiler)

  Reveal hidden contents

Dimitri killing off some of the higher rank Slitherers off-screen in his path made it clear the writers didn't really care about them relative to the rest of the story. Plus even when you're working with them on Edelgard's path they still hardly have a role till you turn on them later, and your Byleth doesn't get the option to confront Edelgard past her "I need their strength for now" answer despite these people just assassinated your dad and tried to send you to the shadow realm. They could easily have played more of a role and made things more interesting, but the writers just weren't interested I guess.

I would have much rather seen them better developed and explained and given more of a focus as your enemy. Instead the whole war scenario felt forced and I couldn't care about either Edelgard or Dimitri as antagonists since I wasn't invested in supporting whatever side I was on against them. The Slitherers getting more time in Claude's path was something but it was still just a side thing to the main conflict.

Fair enough, I think we largely agree on the slitherers, how they were used, and how much the writers didn't care for them. (I differ very strongly on how much I cared about Edelgard, Dimitri, and Rhea as antagonists so I was very happy to play through the conflicts involving them, and tended to consider the slither conflicts undercooked and unimpressive. The last two chapters of VW/SS are a relative weak point of the game's storytelling to me.)

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On 10/5/2019 at 1:28 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Fair enough, I think we largely agree on the slitherers, how they were used, and how much the writers didn't care for them. (I differ very strongly on how much I cared about Edelgard, Dimitri, and Rhea as antagonists so I was very happy to play through the conflicts involving them, and tended to consider the slither conflicts undercooked and unimpressive. The last two chapters of VW/SS are a relative weak point of the game's storytelling to me.)

They were definitely undercooked. Again, it's a real shame, since I thought the things going on with them could have been cool to explore more, but they just didn't.

I wish I could have enjoyed the main conflict more, but it was too dependent on caring about the characters I liked least. The students and teachers were mostly okay, but the actual main lords, Rhea, Sothis, etc. didn't really work for me. Edelgard's flawed ends justify the means methodology, Dimitri's "dark side" and the things Rhea did made me not like any of them. The sad back stories didn't really make me sympathize with them anyway. Claude was rather inoffensive, but like I said in my original post he just felt like a bystander tacked on to the other two.

Edited by Alkaid
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As much as I enjoy the game (currently on my 5th playthrough so far, and I'm not stopping anytime soon), my one major gripe with the game is that on repeat playthroughs, monastery exploration starts to become very tedious. All the different things (activities, talking to people, etc.) aren't as fun after the first playthrough and ends up becoming a skill farm and/or support farm. It doesn't help that monastery stuff only resets every new month with slight changes in activities.

The update to New Game+ renown gain helped massively in removing most of the grinding. By the time I started my latest run, I already had well over 100k renown, which allowed me to buy a huge chunk of stuff I've built up over previous runs. I feel like they could've done more with this though, such as buying support levels between other members, or rewards unlocked from completed paralogues.

There's also a bunch of oversights that I really wish they could patch, such as:

  • Making S-supports less of a pain to grind, especially the bisexual characters.
  • Removing the time lock on supports ("It's too late to deepen the bond" or whatever)
  • Removing the gender lock on all classes.
  • Fixing adjutant proc chance bug.
  • Making seminars not useless; same with rest.
  • Allowing us to view support conversations on the battle menu, for easier support farming.
  • Allowing magic to be used in more classes (particularly for Edelgard's unique classes).

Overall, I really enjoy the game. Some aspects may be a bit repetitive, but at least those can be blitzed through.

Edited by Fire Flower
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Erm, the time lock on supports is super important for making supports that actually interact with the narrative. Every support that talks about the war would have to be rewritten if it was possible to unlock them during the academy phase.

I'll definitely agree on the issues with Explore, though. Maybe it'll be better with the additional activities we're getting later on but I kinda doubt it - even if we get some new things to compete with eating a half dozen dinners that's not gonna change that clicking through these menus is about as engaging as your average Facebook game. It's a good thing it's quick and easy to burn through your activity points,  the only reason it isn't hurting my opinion of the game too much is (as you said) how easy it is to blitz through it.

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2 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

As much as I enjoy the game (currently on my 5th playthrough so far, and I'm not stopping anytime soon), my one major gripe with the game is that on repeat playthroughs, monastery exploration starts to become very tedious. All the different things (activities, talking to people, etc.) aren't as fun after the first playthrough and ends up becoming a skill farm and/or support farm. It doesn't help that monastery stuff only resets every new month with slight changes in activities.

The update to New Game+ renown gain helped massively in removing most of the grinding. By the time I started my latest run, I already had well over 100k renown, which allowed me to buy a huge chunk of stuff I've built up over previous runs. I feel like they could've done more with this though, such as buying support levels between other members, or rewards unlocked from completed paralogues.

There's also a bunch of oversights that I really wish they could patch, such as:

  • Making S-supports less of a pain to grind, especially the bisexual characters.
  • Removing the time lock on supports ("It's too late to deepen the bond" or whatever)
  • Removing the gender lock on all classes.
  • Fixing adjutant proc chance bug.
  • Making seminars not useless; same with rest.
  • Allowing us to view support conversations on the battle menu, for easier support farming.
  • Allowing magic to be used in more classes (particularly for Edelgard's unique classes).

Overall, I really enjoy the game. Some aspects may be a bit repetitive, but at least those can be blitzed through.

Were S-supports that tough for you? On my GD route, Boyleth had the option to S-rank basically every eligible partner that I had regularly brought into battle. I could imagine it being harder on a shorter route, like CF, but... I dunno.

Time-lock on supports is applied so they can fit within the story. Maybe instead, the game could give a warning "this support window is about to close" on the last available month, so you know to spam support points between the two?

I've figured out how Rest and Seminar are balanced - they simply take less time than Exploring or Battling, and are therefore a practical option for those tired of the slog of grinding. I would buff them slightly, however - make the class size of seminars grow with professor level (4 at E, up to 8 at A), introduce seminars that train movement type (so Seteth could be Lance & Flight, Gilbert as Axe & Armor, etc.), and have it build support points between the instructor and learners, when applicable. As for Rest, have it restore 5 uses to *all* Holy Relics and Saint Weapons, so long as they're in the inventory of someone with a matching Crest (or Crest Stone).

Generally agreed on the other points, though!

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Were S-supports that tough for you? On my GD route, Boyleth had the option to S-rank basically every eligible partner that I had regularly brought into battle. I could imagine it being harder on a shorter route, like CF, but... I dunno.

Time-lock on supports is applied so they can fit within the story. Maybe instead, the game could give a warning "this support window is about to close" on the last available month, so you know to spam support points between the two?

I've figured out how Rest and Seminar are balanced - they simply take less time than Exploring or Battling, and are therefore a practical option for those tired of the slog of grinding. I would buff them slightly, however - make the class size of seminars grow with professor level (4 at E, up to 8 at A), introduce seminars that train movement type (so Seteth could be Lance & Flight, Gilbert as Axe & Armor, etc.), and have it build support points between the instructor and learners, when applicable. As for Rest, have it restore 5 uses to *all* Holy Relics and Saint Weapons, so long as they're in the inventory of someone with a matching Crest (or Crest Stone).

Generally agreed on the other points, though!

Getting everyone to A-rank (since it's required to S-rank) isn't the difficult part. It's having to do a minimum of 7 full runs in order to unlock everyone. Even though it is possible to use the New Game+ trick to unlock S-supports, this does not work with bisexual characters since their support points cannot go over cap, and thus you must view their S-supports the normal way with at least one gender in order to purchase the other. And since 3 routes have at least one bisexual character that is only S-supportable on that route (Edelgard in CF, Gilbert in AM, Rhea in SS), you have to reach the end of these routes at least once. In addition, you need to do at least one run of VW in order to unlock Claude's supports. There are 5 other characters with bisexual options (Linhardt, Dorothea, Mercedes, Alois, Sothis). For Sothis, since her support isn't buyable with renown, you need to re-do a final boss map as both Byleths in order to unlock her.

If you didn't pick the route exclusive bisexual characters to S-support on your first playthroughs of each route, you are pretty much screwed and need to do those routes again as the other Byleth.

I would much prefer it if the game gave some kind of indication to a support chain locking, yeah. The game gives no indication as to when, and some supports close at seemingly random times, even post-timeskip.

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I agree with the lack of diversity in this game. I also think that the characters are too similar, statistically. Like, All mages are good and magic and dexterity, and for healers, magic and res. There isn't anything making them unique in battle.

13 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

 

  • Fixing adjutant proc chance bug.

Never heard of this, what happens?

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10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I've figured out how Rest and Seminar are balanced - they simply take less time than Exploring or Battling, and are therefore a practical option for those tired of the slog of grinding. I would buff them slightly, however - make the class size of seminars grow with professor level (4 at E, up to 8 at A), introduce seminars that train movement type (so Seteth could be Lance & Flight, Gilbert as Axe & Armor, etc.), and have it build support points between the instructor and learners, when applicable. As for Rest, have it restore 5 uses to *all* Holy Relics and Saint Weapons, so long as they're in the inventory of someone with a matching Crest (or Crest Stone).

 

Seminars, IMO, should also just let you choose who you bring to them, instead of having to fuss with everyone's goals, then fuss them back.

It's unforgivable that Rest doesn't just max out motivation. You're already losing out on money/professor rank/training/gardening/etc. by going for Rest over Explore, the fact that it's also worse at the one thing that it's supposed to be used for is crazy. I like your idea of repairing all relics, too.

15 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

I agree with the lack of diversity in this game. I also think that the characters are too similar, statistically. Like, All mages are good and magic and dexterity, and for healers, magic and res. There isn't anything making them unique in battle.

Never heard of this, what happens?

Check the Serenes page on adjutants. Basically adjutant attack kicks in way less than it should because if you're at C+/B+/A+ support level internally it counts as no support at all, and most supports ultimately max out at B+ or A+ so this is most of what you'll see. I don't think I've seen a single adjutant attack yet on my current run.

Also while I think the mages are too similar statistically their different spell lists makes them feel quite different in practice.

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12 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

Getting everyone to A-rank (since it's required to S-rank) isn't the difficult part. It's having to do a minimum of 7 full runs in order to unlock everyone. Even though it is possible to use the New Game+ trick to unlock S-supports, this does not work with bisexual characters since their support points cannot go over cap, and thus you must view their S-supports the normal way with at least one gender in order to purchase the other. And since 3 routes have at least one bisexual character that is only S-supportable on that route (Edelgard in CF, Gilbert in AM, Rhea in SS), you have to reach the end of these routes at least once. In addition, you need to do at least one run of VW in order to unlock Claude's supports. There are 5 other characters with bisexual options (Linhardt, Dorothea, Mercedes, Alois, Sothis). For Sothis, since her support isn't buyable with renown, you need to re-do a final boss map as both Byleths in order to unlock her.

If you didn't pick the route exclusive bisexual characters to S-support on your first playthroughs of each route, you are pretty much screwed and need to do those routes again as the other Byleth.

Oh... so you're talking about *having* multiple S-supports with Byleth, simultaneously, on NG+? I guess I never saw that as an issue, since I only go for one S-rank each playthrough. But don't you need to beat the game at least once for *each* possible S-support? I don't see how the ones that can support with either version of Byleth are a sticking point...

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Oh... so you're talking about *having* multiple S-supports with Byleth, simultaneously, on NG+? I guess I never saw that as an issue, since I only go for one S-rank each playthrough. But don't you need to beat the game at least once for *each* possible S-support? I don't see how the ones that can support with either version of Byleth are a sticking point...

If you buy a character's S-support on NG+ that you didn't choose, it will unlock in the event log. Support points can still accumulate past the maximum for characters provided they don't have an S-rank for that gender. It does not work for ones that can support with both versions due to the S-rank keeping the points capped. Therefore, should you wish to unlock all S-supports, you'll have to reach endgame and choose one of those characters in order to buy that S-support as the other version on NG+.

The full mechanics of this are explained here. It's sort of difficult to explain, but it's basically a quirk in the support point system.

You do not have to beat the game 30+ times, fortunately. Doing this saves you most of the effort of replaying final maps.

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10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Check the Serenes page on adjutants. Basically adjutant attack kicks in way less than it should because if you're at C+/B+/A+ support level internally it counts as no support at all, and most supports ultimately max out at B+ or A+ so this is most of what you'll see. I don't think I've seen a single adjutant attack yet on my current run.

Also while I think the mages are too similar statistically their different spell lists makes them feel quite different in practice.

Oh, wow I must have been lucky, then.

The White Magic spell lists aren't that much different, really. It doesn't even apply to mages, it's the whole cast. Bernie and Ashe are similar, Ferdinand and Sylvain, etc, it just makes it boring to me, is all.

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Physic vs not is a huge difference. So are Fortify, Warp, and Rescue. 

Beyond that, there are always some similarities between units in Fire Emblem. This one seems to have less than average. And even among the examples you chose, Bernie's and Ferdinand's personal skills are quite distinct and change their playstyle a bit. Bernie gets Encloser while Ashe doesn't. Sylvain gets Ruined Sky while Ferdinand can pull off dodge-tanking builds significantly better. etc.

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7 hours ago, Fire Flower said:

If you buy a character's S-support on NG+ that you didn't choose, it will unlock in the event log. Support points can still accumulate past the maximum for characters provided they don't have an S-rank for that gender. It does not work for ones that can support with both versions due to the S-rank keeping the points capped. Therefore, should you wish to unlock all S-supports, you'll have to reach endgame and choose one of those characters in order to buy that S-support as the other version on NG+.

The full mechanics of this are explained here. It's sort of difficult to explain, but it's basically a quirk in the support point system.

You do not have to beat the game 30+ times, fortunately. Doing this saves you most of the effort of replaying final maps.

Interesting, thanks for the insight. Still a little confused about the support system, but it doesn't bother me. For me, the big scoop from that thread is that I can get Darting Blow on my next Boyleth, haha.

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On 10/3/2019 at 2:34 AM, Alkaid said:

Gameplay:

First up, I don't like the lack of the weapon triangle. All the melee weapon types feel too similar without it and it makes choosing engagements feel less strategic because it hardly matters which weapon you use. Gambits feel awkward, as I don't really like the idea of free super attacks that can't be countered. Some are OP like Stride or Blaze too, while the rest I rarely used besides for breaking monster shields and fighting the Death Knight. The combat arts are completely unnecessary on Hard and Maddening you're stuck using them just because your normal damage is so terrible early game against the bloated enemies. Action speed and weight returning just feel like they over complicate how doubling is calculated rather than actually adding depth. Weapon durability is nothing but a hassle this time. You get so many uses for every weapon and it's so easy to repair/recharge anything, even relics, that it adds nothing but the busywork repairing things between battles.

For the maps, I don't think they're as bad as SoV, where they were just abysmal, but they still feel mostly poor and unmemorable in this game. Even years later I can remember the majority of Conquest's maps and enjoyed most of them, but the 3H maps are so bland I could barely remember them after finishing a play session most times. The reuse of maps for multiple paralogues also felt incredibly lazy, or just another sign this game had an oddly low budget.

I really dislike the new class/skill system as well. While it sounds cool on paper I can't stand the execution and needing to grind and tutor skills to unlock classes, then master a class to get its skill. I had far more fun in the 3DS games simply sealing into classes and collecting skills by leveling up a few times. It is just pure tedium to try and grind class/skill exp during a map and needing to max out to mastery for the skills can take prohibitively long. Even with the knowledge gem it's just a complete slog and turned me away from wanting to do any fun class changes or experimentation with my characters.

The monastery segments are another thing I liked on paper, and for the first while of the game it was a pretty neat addition. However by the timeskip I was already sick of it and it'd become just a chore to do every month. Sure, you could skip it, but you miss out on quite a lot if you do. That's missed support points, student happiness for tutoring time, items and professor exp. Even things like the fishing are just tedious, and I usually like fishing in games. Sitting there for 20 minutes at a time doing the minigame every month to go through all the bait for professor points was something I started to dread by a few months in. And again, you miss out on a lot if you don't take advantage of it to get the professor points out of it, since it counts for a ton. NG+ letting you buy your ranks back doesn't change you had to slog through it the first time.

The difficulty is also totally out of whack in this game. Hard is so easy it's a complete bore to play, meanwhile Maddening jumped straight past good challenge to nonsense stat bloat and exp gimping which is just the other extreme of not being fun. Conquest's difficulties were much better balanced and more fair, even on lunatic.(minus the final chapter was a bit much without cheesing it) One-shotting everything on Hard and turtling to kill 1 enemy with 5 of your units on Maddening are equally lame balancing. I'm not a fan of the return of the Turnwheel feature either with Sothis' time skip, since that's another thing that cuts down on the thinking and risk management you need to do when you have so many do-overs to cheese with.

 

On 10/3/2019 at 2:34 AM, Alkaid said:

Overall really hoped to love the game and definitely gave it a fair shake in trying. I wanted to be part of the crowd that's been adoring the game but I can't get on board for this one. I can forgive a poor story much easier than poor gameplay, which is why Conquest is still my favorite FE by a mile, but here I just disliked both and the gameplay especially. I hoped Maddening would change things for me with the game actually getting some challenge in it, but like I said they just jumped to a different type of unfun instead.


Mate, honestly, I had to quote a great part of your message because I felt identified with most of it. I read it a couple of days ago and it just clicked. I read it various times precisely because  you could articulate how I feel about Three Houses.
I even felt more disappointed because I got a Switch mainly because of this game. (Literally, the console remained in its box for almost one year.)

For me, Three Houses is turn-based and plays on a grid, but it involves no tactics. It just a slow RPG. (The same happened to me with Awakening, but it at least had Owain.)

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How I feel about this game, is how I feel about Path of Radiance, solid cast but the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired. 3H has my favorite cast in the series so far, the characters feel like they have a purpose in this game (not like the filler characters like Nyx, Hayato, Orochi in Fates) and are pretty fleshed out for the most part. However gameplay wise... my main problems are that

  • Class imbalance - Wyvern Lords have similar perks to Falcoknights (having similar Speed, Avoid through Alert Stance and Avoid +10, and Triangle Attack) but with a better weapon and tankiness which makes them absurdly broken. Bow Knights having really high range and close counter is also pretty op. It's unfortunate that a game that focuses on customization and reclassing your units, decides which units are top tier based on how fast they can reach Wyvern Lord or Bow Knight (and how they fare as those classes). Funny enough, like PoR the game is basically mounted emblem + 1 mage.
  • Class progression - Class progression is awkward for Dark Knights, Falcoknights, and Great Knights to name a few. There's no advanced mage mounted class to ease the training of riding for Dark Knights, and there's no advanced pegasus knight class which will make the transition into Falcoknight easier.
  • Harder difficulties - It's honestly kind of lazy to make modes difficult by either absurdly inflating stats and/or enemy count. There are other means of making difficulty modes such as improving AI or enemy position (maybe even change the means of getting to objectives). Turtling is pretty much the way to go in Maddening and you don't really get punished by doing so (compared to Fe11/12 that do punish turtling). Also having 8-12 Divine Pulse charges also does trivialize the difficulty as well (incoming jUst dOnT uSe iT tHeN comments)
  • Similar maps - I'd rather not play the Myrrdin map, chasing daybreak, alliel, etc. maps 3-4 times (at least CF route changes that Myrrdin map dynamic but, it's still more or less the same). The maps being repeated sooooo many times is unfortunate since it makes the routes less unique. I'd be fine with it if the premise of the chapters were different (E.G. GD route requests reinforcements from Judith, SS route goes to Alliel for something else) but it's not.

can't think of anything else atm

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after a while, how do I feel? 

i still love it. 


there are things i don't like but there are things i didn't like in Awakening but i still love it, things i didn't like in Fates but i still like it, and thinks i didn't like in Echoes but still love it. i do respect people's views on why they don't like things but i also feel sort of confused because to me i don't see how its different than grinding up to a certain level to get something in the earlier games  - vs. grinding up the skills here then being in the class. 

(and i also suppose theoretically) you can do the slog once - then always have it there so you can buy the classes and mix and match stuff which is what i do now. but i've played this six times now lol (and will probably play it a lot more too to mix and match different things. 

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On 9/27/2019 at 7:06 PM, Fire Brand said:

Story: I have never seen so much potential evaporate so quickly. It's an inconsistent mess that doesn't even qualify for the "so bad it's good category". Characters are constantly shoving their one note personalities down your throat, too.

Have to agree with this, so much effort is put into the world building only for it to go all to waste because the game wants to revolve around a protagonist with no personality (and that being their personality) one note villains and a contrived religion.

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