Jump to content

I like Fates more than Three Houses


Florete
 Share

Recommended Posts

Disclaimer: I don't mean to present any of my criticisms in here as fact. If you love Three Houses and hate Fates, that's fine, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. I expect a lot of people to disagree with a lot of what I have to say, but I'm saying it anyway to offer a different perspective.

Let's begin.

I took a week off of work when Three Houses released. I chose Black Eagles/Crimson Flower for my first run, but I didn't finish before I had to go back to work because I kept taking breaks. After that run, I went to the Golden Deer. This run took a lot longer not only because I was working, but because I was splitting my attention with other unimportant things a lot. Right before I finished it, Maddening released. I started a Blue Lions run on Maddening, but it's still sitting at Ch 4 because I got mad and never continued it.

I bought the DLC in that first week, so I got the Ashen Wolves expansion the other day and started it. I've done the first two chapters, but I'm not sure I'll do any more, because I've finally accepted what I've been feeling deep down all along; Three Houses disappointed me, and/or is not the FE game for me. 

I'm making this specific comparison for a few reasons. One, Fates is the preceding non-remake game in the series to Three Houses, which leads to a lot of people comparing them. Two, both have some similar themes and concepts at their core that other games in the series don't have. Three, I feel Fates gets a bad rap for some things that it doesn't deserve, and feel Three Houses gets praised for some things that it doesn't deserve.

For the record, before playing Fates, I had played every FE game in the series except the first 3, including the Japan-only games, though I didn't finish Thracia or New Mystery despite getting past halfway in both. I played Echoes and Warriors when they released and have played Heroes for the majority of its existence. I haven't played Tokyo Mirage Sessions.


The Story
This is where pretty much everyone ever is going to agree that Three Houses is superior. Fates' story was a dumpster fire. Three Houses has its flaws, but is way better-written than Fates.

I agree with all of that. But I'm still giving this win to Fates.

Why? Well, for all its issues (and there are a lot of them), Fates' story still managed to keep me engaged more than Three Houses ever did. Three Houses often seemed like it had more ambition than it knew what to do with. It has so many details that it couldn't even fit them all into any individual route, making each one feel unfinished on its own. While Fates does leave tidbits of something greater in Birthright and Conquest, those stories still tie up all their own things and feel complete by the end. Three Houses' pacing is also an issue. All the monthly activities bring the story to a halt for potentially hours at a time, whereas Fates' story never stops moving until the player takes a break.

Simply put, at the end of it all, despite Fates' story having a lot more criticisms to lobby at it, its presentation was better, and I left it more satisfied than I left Three Houses.


The Choice
Despite how much better the writing is in Three Houses, this is one area I will stand by that Fates absolutely did better. I've seen people talk about how Three Houses doesn't have a "golden route" because the idea is to make your choice and stick with it.

That's a load of crap.

When you make your choice in Three Houses, you know nothing of the impending conflict. You're choosing based on a little bit of the house leaders backgrounds and the most basic personality traits of the students in said houses (and also their appearances, which is likely more important for most people). If you initially choose Black Eagles, the game eventually just straight up gives you the option to opt out and not side with Edelgard at all (or maybe it's the other way around). I always felt like Silver Snow only existed because the devs realized people might not want to side with Edelgard after they understand her position. So much for sticking with your decision.

In Fates, you're given time to know the characters you have to choose between, at least more than in Three Houses, and you get an understanding of the conflict going on. Say what you will about the rest of the story, but Fates wins this match hands-down.


The Routes
Fates was and still is criticized for splitting its routes into three separate purchases. I didn't agree with this criticism at the time, as I felt the content in each route justified it, especially when subsequent routes had their price cut in half. If Fates had been sold as one unit, there would have been less of it (which in some ways may have been to its benefit, but that's a different conversation).

After Three Houses, I feel even stronger about Fates' split being justified. Yeah, Three Houses gives you all its routes in one package, but at the cost of each one being a lot less unique. The first act of the game is straight up identical regardless of your chosen house, and the second act still has more reused assets across the routes than Fates did.

Now, some might argue that the first act is not identical across routes because you are using a different cast of characters. That's true, but it doesn't really make the way you approach the missions any different. It's the same maps and enemies, and your cast largely have the same roles. You have your brawler (Caspar/Dedue/Raphael), your healer (Linhardt/Mercedes/Marianne), your archer (Bernadetta/Ashe/Claude), your axe girl (Edelgard/Annette/Hilda), your destined-to-be-a-cavalier (Ferdinand/Sylvain/Leonie), your speedy swordie (Petra/Felix/Ignatz), etc.


The Gameplay
After Fates' release, I believed it to have the best gameplay in the series. That opinion hasn't changed, and wasn't even so much as challenged by Three Houses.

I noticed very quickly that Three Houses felt very sluggish. As mentioned above, I've played a lot of the series, and most of the games I've played more than once, some as many as 10+. I've never had this issue with any of them. I tried adjusting the settings and did get some things to improve, but the sluggishness never went away. For a while I wasn't sure why, but I think I've found a couple reasons this might be the case.

Cursor movement is not as fluid as any previous game in the series, an issue that may sound small but is a huge problem over time. There's a longer gap than normal between enemies moving, which makes enemy phases longer than they should be because each individual enemy takes longer to do whatever it is they're doing. Together, this means each phase has a problem; I have to deal with awkward cursor movement on player phase and slow movement on enemy phase (I know I can skip enemy phase, but I still think this is a flaw).

Other gameplay features: Teaching is interesting at first, but gets tiresome by the second playthrough, and while it can technically be skipped the game is heavily designed around it, making skipping it unoptimal. A lot of other monastery activities end up feeling like busywork that you do not because it's fun but because it's efficient. Fishing sucks.

Fates' version of pair up and dual strike was the best new mechanic ever added to the series, and Three Houses completely ditched it.

I played Fates a total of 9 times (3 per route) before putting it down. I barely got through 2 runs of Three Houses.


The Difficulty
Fates had three routes, each with their own base level of difficulty, and each with three separate difficulty settings of their own. The jump in difficulty from normal to hard to lunatic on any given route was fair and expected. From the cakewalk of Birthright normal to the craziness of Conquest lunatic, Fates offers difficulty levels suitable for just about anyone.

Three Houses' separate routes don't differ much in difficulty by themselves, so its normal, hard, and maddening are really the only variants. Despite it being my first run, I found hard mode (classic) too easy for my liking. Then maddening cranks it up to 15. I criticized Awakening back in the day for its difficulty jump from hard to lunatic being too much, yet Three Houses is even worse. I have to handicap myself for hard mode to feel like a challenge and I have to be perfect to even beat maddening. Ugh.


The Characters
This is one area I will actually, legitimately, no fake outs, give to Three Houses.

Three Houses character writing is where it is at its best and my time watching support conversations was easily where I had most of my enjoyment. It's likely a result of how it went about them compared to Fates; Fates had the "everyone supports everyone or no one" system, leaving all of them with either too many dull conversations or just not enough of anything. It also allowed any pair to go from C-S instantly, meaning the supports have to be completely separate from the world around them else they risk contradicting current events. Three Houses locks supports to specific time frames, doesn't have a second generation, and doesn't even allow S ranks until post game, letting each conversation be able to more naturally fit into the setting, and they are superior for it.

Three Houses also lets me be gay with more than a bad stereotype, so that's a big plus. Also, Byleth is better than Corrin.


The Music
I like Fates' OST more.

There's really not much else to say about this. Taste in music is highly subjective. Three Houses definitely has some great tracks, but I remember more of Fates' tracks, and remember them more fondly.


Conclusion
I bought the limited edition version of Three Houses and the season pass and was ultimately disappointed, but I don't regret it. I don't hate the game, but it's far from my favorite in the series. I had fun with it, but I know I won't look back on it as fondly as many other entries in the series.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 234
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Someone finally said it

I honestly enjoy them both, but it honestly seems everyone has a hate boner for Corrin

As a Corrin fan I honestly get annoyed by it

There are some things I would disagree with here, but thats for when I make a video about this (If I ever have less procrastination)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find characters to be the lifeblood of a good, engaging story and that's generally what prevented me from caring about the one big choice Fates presented at it's center. Everyone could die or be killed and I'd be unmoved lol.

Three Houses has problems with it's narrative and the implementation of some of it's systems, but it puts a lot more legwork into its characters, so even if the rest of the narrative falls short (and it often does) you can at least derive some enjoyment from watching the story unfold.

I've tried twice, but I haven't finished Fates. Got 3/4ths of the way each time and just dropped it.

That said, it is okay to like bad, imperfect things. I like Dragon Age 2.

Edited by Crysta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disagree that the presentation and choice is inferior in Three houses, since Three houses has full voice acting for all its conversations pretty much, and I liked how you were forced to make a game changing choice (choosing your house) from the beginning and seeing the consequences of your actions unfold over the course of the game.

I also was never bothered by things like combat animations on the map or the cursor movement taking too long (mostly because I always play with animations on myself).

But really it sounds like we just have different priorities and opinions when it comes to fire emblem and that's ok. It's perfectly fine to like different things in life compared to other people, regardless of what said other people think. What matters is enjoying what YOU like and not just taking the most popular opinion on the internet as your own. Find what YOU like and not what the internet likes. You can use the internet to inform you, but don't let it control you.

I remember when it was popular and cool to hate on sonic adventure 1 and 2, because of a few certain popular youtubers making videos on said games...that's an example of what I mean where it can sometimes feel like nobody thinks for themselves anymore since just before these videos, lots of people liked these games and they sold well.

Edited by Dinar87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Dinar87 said:

I disagree that the presentation and choice is inferior in Three houses, since Three houses has full voice acting for all its conversations pretty much, and I liked how you were forced to make a game changing choice (choosing your house) from the beginning and seeing the consequences of your actions unfold over the course of the game.

I also was never bothered by things like combat animations on the map or the cursor movement taking too long (mostly because I always play with animations on myself).

But really it sounds like we just have different priorities and opinions when it comes to fire emblem and that's ok. It's perfectly fine to like different things in life compared to other people, regardless of what said other people think. What matters is enjoying what YOU like and not just taking the most popular opinion on the internet as your own. Find what YOU like and not what the internet likes. You can use the internet to inform you, but don't let it control you.

To be fair they didn't start adding the Voice Lines for everything till Echoes

And the consequences of picking a house seem very unfair to someone who might not wanted to side with the person after all since you only get 2 scenes to know the lords before you choose, which can make people say "Hey I didn't want this at all, I didn't know what I was getting into"

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, AvatarofDiscord said:

To be fair they didn't start adding the Voice Lines for everything till Echoes

And the consequences of picking a house seem very unfair to someone who might not wanted to side with the person after all since you only get 2 scenes to know the lords before you choose, which can make people say "Hey I didn't want this at all, I didn't know what I was getting into"

 

I don't think the first point matters when judging them purely as games quality/art wise, just when judging them as improving development wise.

That's true, I didn't think of that. It's just personally I never had any issue with it though I can see it as a slight design flaw that they don't give you enough time to know each house's characters better, though I do think no matter which path you take (except silver snow) it's guaranteed to be fun anyways so that's why I said "slight" design flaw, though this is based on my own experiences with the game's paths.
 

I want to try out Awakening and Fates again sometime, though I do think they're worse than Three houses as I don't like the music, gameplay, story and characters nearly as much. Even though Conquest was fun, I still preferred having three houses 4th tier class promotions IMO. Still, it could be fun to check them out again....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there could have been a better introduction to the three houses than what we got, but unless you're playing 100% blind and/or are completely new to the series, I think most of us had our preference by the time the artwork and character bios hit. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of the games that I have played Fates is the weakest in terms of story and characters. I think of Fates and Three Houses in the same way that I think of the WiiU and the Switch. Three Houses is a fine tuning of the ideas tried in Fates (and to some degree Echoes). I think that in Fates I cared about exactly one character (Elise). I didn't find any connection to any of the other characters and the presentation of the two sides just comes off as cartoonishly silly at times. A good example of this is the main characters. Byleth is a mostly blank slate, but their reason for being mostly emotionless is kind of given in story. Corrin comes off frankly pretty goofy in the game with the whole idea that they never allow their armies to kill and other contrived things. 

Like Byleth acts in ways that are not always what the player would see as good for sure, but it makes them seem more like part of this rough world as opposed to some idealized Shonen protagonist. Conquest has some cool maps and the character art is pretty on point, but other than that (and that one song Road Taken) I can't think of much I liked about the game by itself. It was fun enough to keep me going because bad Fire Emblem is still Fire Emblem. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Florete said:

The Gameplay
After Fates' release, I believed it to have the best gameplay in the series. That opinion hasn't changed, and wasn't even so much as challenged by Three Houses.

I'm with you here 100%. Above all else I really liked the map design in Fates, gimmicky Dragon Veins included. In that regard Three Houses was lacking, although the DLC scratches the itch for more 'traditional' Fire Emblem. 

I'd add to that how each game handled graphics on the platform it released: Fates looked killer on 3DS, even added feet (:P), it was a very slick package with art style / animations suited for both gameplay and story, playing the dual screens strengths.
Three Houses on the other hand has performance issues, text is too small for handheld mode, and in general the looks are average both on map and in the monastery. 

I'm not as disappointed with 3H as you OP, still love the game very much and Fates has it's own, quite major issues but I can wholeheartedly agree that FE:F > FETH. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i always appreciate criticism towards 3H, because far too many people praise it for being the best game in the series but actually have no counterarguments to support their statements, when proved wrong

anyway, despite this premise, i really can't agree with what you said, i think 3H is a huge improvement from Fates

no, it doesn't mean that 3H is perfect, in fact it's far from it and has many flaws that Fates doesn't have

but there is one thing i absolutely agree with you: Fates wasn't nearly as pretentious and try-hard as 3H is

imho everything crumbles when in 3H they talk about huge wars, dragons and gods, but then the game lets you choose something which it considers "wrong", in a game where advertisements made it look like choices actually mattered

"ok guys should we move left or right"

"left"

"no you idiot we're going right"

 

i can definitely see why Fates engaged you more than 3H though

Edited by Yexin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Florete said:

Huh, there's more support than I expected so far. And the people voicing disagreements are pretty good about it. I wonder what would happen if I posted this on GameFAQs or Reddit.

Reddit is obsessed with upvotes and circle jerking from my experience with it, and GameFAQs...yeah they're always negative it feels like XD I remember a guy called "EndGame" who would not stop ranting about fates and "cowmilla" like it had cucked him in real life.

But maybe I'm wrong and it's changed since then?

I think it's the system that defines the interactions and people on it. Serenes forest has a good system overall imo since you can't upvote and doesn't *seem* to hide anything based on popularity/unpopularity so I think it's good.

Edited by Dinar87
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So much yes in a single topic.

But most of the time, at the very least as far as I can see, discussions about “TH vs Fates” are almost always about story. I feel I have seen very little serious discussion about gameplay-aspects and as far as I have observed these discussions, few make a case for TH (especially if it´s TH or Conquest, BR and Rev are not as prevalent). But that may just be me looking in the wrong places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Imuabicus said:

So much yes in a single topic.

 

But most of the time, at the very least as far as I can see, discussions about “TH vs Fates” are almost always about story. I feel I have seen very little serious discussion about gameplay-aspects and as far as I have observed these discussions, few make a case for TH (especially if it´s TH or Conquest, BR and Rev are not as prevalent). But that may just be me looking in the wrong places.

 

Even then, when it is about story they say all of Fate's story sucked, when honestly the story was alright it might have been generic at times but it still was good

How should I know, I READ THE SCRIPT 7 TIMES JUST TO DEFEND CORRIN WHEN PEOPLE SAY THEY RE THE WORST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Florete said:

The Choice

 

Despite how much better the writing is in Three Houses, this is one area I will stand by that Fates absolutely did better. I've seen people talk about how Three Houses doesn't have a "golden route" because the idea is to make your choice and stick with it.

That's a load of crap.

When you make your choice in Three Houses, you know nothing of the impending conflict. You're choosing based on a little bit of the house leaders backgrounds and the most basic personality traits of the students in said houses (and also their appearances, which is likely more important for most people). If you initially choose Black Eagles, the game eventually just straight up gives you the option to opt out and not side with Edelgard at all (or maybe it's the other way around). I always felt like Silver Snow only existed because the devs realized people might not want to side with Edelgard after they understand her position. So much for sticking with your decision.

In Fates, you're given time to know the characters you have to choose between, at least more than in Three Houses, and you get an understanding of the conflict going on. Say what you will about the rest of the story, but Fates wins this match hands-down.

 

No, you don't, because unless you paid $19.99 for another route, you are stuck with the version you bought.

If you played blind, how were you going to know any of these characters or their motivation before you choose Birthright or Conquest when you stood in a game store?

I know guys that couldn't finish Fates because they bought the route that hated, and refuse to spend $20 to buy the other route, and giving up on Fates all together.

 

And Conquest was extremely misleading, the marketed it as an antagonist/villain path, only turned out Corrin didn't believe in Nohr cause at all, they were just trying to show everyone Goron was bad guy by putting him on a throne. If Goron refused to sit (like Corrin themselves in Drama CD), or for any other reason he didn't make it to the throne (like if Horshido defense was successful, or castle burnt down...etc) then the whole war and bloodshed would be for nothing.

Edited by Timlugia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally enjoyed Fates' gameplay much more than TH...it just felt more polished when I was playing it. 

My biggest issue of TH though, is how it felt really sluggish in general. While I appreciate the freedom of choice, it sometimes felt too much and the choices available weren't really equal in terms of importance? Every week, I'd do the same routine of eating meals, harvest my crops, go get faculty training. Some actions that takes activity points like tea time, sauna or whatever didn't really matter to me so it honestly got a bit repetitive and boring.

Also, despite the freedom of choice of choosing which class your students can be, it sometimes felt like it didn't matter in the end since every class can pretty much wield any weapon. The whole gender locked classes also baffles me. The fact that 2 of the 4 new classes from the DLC are gender locked is just...

The biggest contributor to the sluggish feeling I have playing this game is the whole pre time skip. The fact that I have to play it 4 times to get through all 4 routes is just..frankly..boring.

I honestly hope the next new FE game will just stick with one coherent storyline.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definitely have to disagree on the story, especially about the presentation. Imo Fates had a very big problem with presenting the themes and significance of its story to its audience throughout the whole experience. In Three Houses, it's easy to understand Edelgard/Dimitri/Rhea etc.'s motivations because their beliefs are made clear through the things they say, and with introspection of your own to decide if you agree with them or not, you can easily find Three Houses' themes. In Azure Moon, Dimitri makes his black-and-white morality very clear to the player, and once he recovers, he tells Byleth about his new ideal of trying to achieve peace through understanding instead, but it's shown in two junctures to not be a bulletproof belief.

On the other hand, for Fates, I like to use Conquest Ch. 18 as an example. The plot of the chapter is a parallel of Garon's old scheme of inviting Sumeragi out to neutral territory, only to have him murdered, which resulted in Corrin being taken away. Here, with Corrin once again on neutral territory with both Nohrian and Hoshidan royalty, Corrin and the Nohrians reject Zola's plan and defend the Hoshidans because that's what's morally correct. It's a concrete showcase of the direction Corrin and their Nohrian siblings are planning to take their country, the exact opposite of Garon's reign. Fates doesn't really do a good job of drawing this parallel, though; the pre-battle cutscene is focused on the tension between Hoshidans and Nohrians, and Xander calling Zola despicable, but it never calls back to that opening scene. It's partially because the pre-battle cutscenes of the 3DS games weren't exactly the best format, but there is no visible attempt to remind the audience. While playing, you have to remember this early scene, and then study the scenes yourself to extract potential author intent behind them. A mention, such as making Ryoma say that Nohr hasn't changed one bit in response to Zola's scheme, would instantly make the idea more accessible to the general audience.

I also don't agree that the choice in Fates is more nuanced. I firmly believe that the prologue is very much skewed in favour of encouraging one to play Birthright first. With the limited information available to the player on a blind run, it is a logical conclusion to assume that Garon was planning to harm Corrin in some way by giving him Ganglari, a literal bomb sword, and Corrin's mother was just killed by it. It honestly makes no sense to me to choose Nohr after that betrayal with the information on hand, other than perhaps strong sentimentality towards the Nohrian family/distaste for the Hoshidans (or the meta reason of you only bought Conquest). It's only after going through a first playthrough that one can be aware the invisible soldiers are a separate force not really working for Nohr, and thus there might have been more to that betrayal.

To begin with, I don't even think Fates was written and planned to be a game about the choice they marketed. I feel that there are elements of Fates' plot that points to earlier drafts featuring only one continuous storyline (e.g. Corrin seeing and learning about Valla in Conquest is the perfect point for the plot to transition into Revelation; they have good reason to try and unite the two countries against a common enemy), but then parts of the game suggest to me they might have considered a "New Game+" structure where you play Birthright first, Conquest next and finally Revelation to eventually unravel the mysteries. Birthright is heavier on exposition and world-building about locations in the world, and working off the choice in the early game, you're given very little information about the invisible soldiers, but enough to make you doubt that they're aligned with Nohr. Conquest goes deeper into the mysteries by directly showing Valla to the player, and basically confirms that Garon is not the big bad after all. And in Revelation, you finally clear everything up with all that you've learnt. The final product no longer completely reflects these lines of development anymore, but there are elements that feel so out of place for a game about picking a side that I find it hard to believe it was the original concept. Somewhat related, Azura's S Support voiced lines also have this strange sense of progression in the JP version. In her BR S Support, she says that she hopes to learn to love Corrin someday; in her CQ one, she tells him that she does love him; and in RV, she says that she has loved him for a long time. It's a really strange detail, making it seem like she remembers Corrin across game files. I like to think that it's related to the second theory.

I will somewhat agree with the gameplay part, though, but only about Conquest. Birthright is quite easy, though intentional, and the maps are mostly just Rout. Revelation is an unbalanced mess as they failed to adjust units like Laslow and Odin to their new join time. Conquest was very intricate, however, even if occasionally tedious. The fact that the difficulty of Lunatic CQ comes mainly from enemy formations instead of individual enemies having unfair stats is a testament to that. The class system has also ended up being quite unbalanced in Three Houses. Not to say Fates' was very well-balanced (it wasn't), but 3H is egregious about it. I think rushed development is partly to blame for the large amount of reused maps in 3H, but in the end the released product is unfortunately that way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only good thing about fates are the lvl designs and difficulty in conquest and that godlike teaser trailer the first 50 seconds where epic. The best trailer in any fire emblem game really. kinda dissapointed with the end result really. that teaser trailer made me super hyped for fates. 

Really hard to choose wich series was more dissapointing FE fates or tree houses both had a ton of cons for me in what I wanted to see in a fire emblem game.

I will say though if where talking Fire emblem games. Fire emblem tree houses felt the least like a fire emblem game. The high school  stuff like tea time made me cringe. the school sim part before the time skip I'm kinda hoping that gets replaced in the next game.

Rather have an overworld, like actual barracks, cities a castle I don't know something that makes sense when where looking at past fire emblem titles. a high school monestary felt really out of place imo. Maybe for the wizard class as a part of the game but otherwise felt out of place.

 

 

Edited by Ephraimx
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No problem with your views to me. Though I've given, unfairly, something of an irrational cold shoulder to 3H; and I've never used the monastery features, nor ever manually taught. Though part of me has a desire to do an SS run, yet only with the DLC bought, but I never intend to buy it sans sale.

Not like I love Fates either. BR can be fun, but turns disappointing during the mid-lategame. Rev is just a mess. And Conquest, well its challenge can be fun (on Hard, Lunatic from as early as C7 is too much for me) sometimes, but it makes it difficult to return to as well.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"I like Fates more than Three Houses"

Wow, why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave? 

And yeah I agree with your points actually. I can't help but feel like FE16 tried to take on more than it could handle. In few years I can actually see more people turn on FE16 a bit, just like with FE15. But right now, people are still very hyped about it.

And the DLC for this game was just awful. It's a joke in comparison to FE14's DLC. And I think what makes me even more angry is that it could had been so much better? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I kind of agree with what @Florete says 

I mean 3H with the whole CF or SS route was kind of dumb 

When I was playing and they were like choose a side

I was like uh why should I side with Edelgard or Rhea(I mean yes I did go crimson flower because I was an Edelgard fan) but they should have developed more into it like with Fates. I mean Rhea who's all like she doesn't follow me blindly like the other 2 lords kill her!!!, and Edelgard's basically like she's been controlling fodlan for too long. 

Also I find it kind of weird how IS was like oh Edelgard was right, her actions are right but then use constant things to make her wrong?

But fates characters were kind of one noted keyword: kind of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I agree with some of what you're saying, I can't agree with your conclusion as a lot of what one could criticise 3H for also applies to Fates. The story falls short of what it could've been? Check. Repetitive gameplay? I felt it by the time I got to Revelation. Difficulty issues? The only route that Fates got right was Conquest and with Maddening there's at least some improvement in 3H.

I personally prefer 3H's story being divided up in the four part 2 routes that, when taken together, at least form a cohesive narrative, than Fates' three full price routes that make little to no sense individually or together. I agree that 3H part 1 could've been better, and I believe they might have intended to include more differences for each house since it's really focused on Blue Lions, but as you said it's a consequence of 3H being one package as opposed to Fates. And tbh I'm willing to settle for a samey part 1 and pay only once. I mean, it's basically like replaying any of the other games that don't have route splits, only in 3H you at least have the freedom to try out new class builds. If you are locking the characters in to what you perceive their roles to be, that's on you. I've done shit like Gremory Hilda and Wyvern Rider Lysithea is a thing in the community. 3H encourages experimentation and unless you're playing Maddening non-NG+ you probably won't be punished for it.

Presentation is pretty even between the games as 3H has full voice acting and, imo, better battle scenes, while Fates has really slick menus and is great looking for the 3DS. Map design and mission variety definitely goes to Fates but mainly because of Conquest, and tbh considering how awful Revelation maps are it might cancel out.

As for the choice... While it definitely feels like a more pivotal moment in Fates, this really only applies if you purchased the LE. If not, you're making the choice at the store, between two physical packages. 3H may not give you much information in-game before asking you to choose, but at least you can make the choice in-game every time. In the end both choices are probably more based on character looks and limited information about the campaigns rather than actually siding with who you think is justified in the conflict to come.

I'm sure Fates has its fans and that's totally fair, as I consider Conquest a great game despite its massive flaws. But it does kind of feel like "last game nostalgia" in this thread to me. Like I said, there's some massive flaws even in the best route of Fates, while personally I consider 3H's flaws to be minimal.

Edited by Book Bro
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As someone who recently finished all four routes, I can agree that Three Houses does have some flaws that hold it back from being the best Fire Emblem game. With that said though, I still prefer it over Fates by a landmile. The story may have it's flaws, but for the most part, it's fine overall (except for Silver Snow, that route sucks ass). There's also a lot more characters in Three Houses that I love compared to Fates. Not to say there weren't characters in Fates that I liked, cuz there were (EX: Leo, Takumi, Oboro, Awakening Trio, etc.), but there were also a lot of characters who I absolutely hated (EX: Corrin, Azura, Camilla, Xander, Peri, Nina, Rhajat, Hinata, Hisame, etc.) By contrast, the only character from Three Houses' cast I dislike is Cyril. Gameplay wise, I will agree that Part 1 is way too samey between all four routes (and it is the biggest criticism I have of the game as well), however, I would rather take this over having to pay more than seventy American dollars to play through every route.

So yeah, personally, while Three Houses has it's flaws, I'll play it over Fates any day of the fucking week, but that's just me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...