I like Fates more than Three Houses

[Crysta]

I like the building miniatures on maps even if their textures sometimes look like jpegs.

[BakanGin]

Imma just add this:

The reclassing in fates felt more fun then three houses, I don't quite know why but it did.

[ThatFeheroesdude]

I also liked Fates more. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up with or what but three houses was not my favorite, but right now I’m playing through the black eagles to finish the game because I didn’t finish it completely. One thing I hate is how slow the story is in three houses. You gotta go through each month to do the next chapter, yeah sure you can train your units during the month but I feel it’s not as fun. Although I can see why people like three houses. But I agree 100% with what you are saying

[Erosword]

On 3/2/2020 at 7:49 PM, ThatFeheroesdude said:

I also liked Fates more. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up with or what but three houses was not my favorite, but right now I’m playing through the black eagles to finish the game because I didn’t finish it completely. One thing I hate is how slow the story is in three houses. You gotta go through each month to do the next chapter, yeah sure you can train your units during the month but I feel it’s not as fun. Although I can see why people like three houses. But I agree 100% with what you are saying

Just get to the point where all your units are mounted fliers as a Wyvern Lord, Falcon Knight, or the Dark Flier for the magic users who can't be bothered, then just warp teleport to your objective to win.  My Byleth was already clearing maps w/ 1 teleport by the time I hit post time skip and by then I would say the town stuff is optional.  Otherwise, I would just say to skip the life sims stuff and to simply spend the first week to plant shit+get freebies before moving onto the next month.  With a bit of luck and planning, I think I cleared the game in 10-12 hrs give or take just spending my time in the first half to prep before stepping onto the gas for the 2nd half when the benefits are less apparent. 

[PPPPPPP270]

One thing that really bothered me about Three Houses is the class system pretty robust and fun to build around, but the problem stems from the game encouraging multiple playthroughs and the fact the starting units are basically blank slates allowing for full customization and reused maps. It ends up giving the routes a severe lack of variety between each house as all the houses must have a white mage,black mage,archer, and to make things worse they seem to have very similar growths between the archetypes. 

 

In Fire Emblem Echoes imagine if both routes had a similar cast of characters unit wise. Celica's route was unique because it consisted of a bunch of magic units with several mercenaries. Alm's route was a bit more customizable with the villagers and was a more well balanced team. Also THEY DON'T REUSE MAPS. Granted a lot of Echoes maps in general were really bad on both sides. 

If they keep the Three Houses class system in the next game, I want to see the starting cast of units start out as intermediate classes and just cut out the beginner and noble/commoner classes. It just slows the early game down by a crap ton. 4 movement on every unit is so awful. 

[Flere210]

25 minutes ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

It ends up giving the routes a severe lack of variety between each house as all the houses must have a white mage,black mage,archer, and to make things worse they seem to have very similar growths between the archetypes. 

It's even worse if they have different growth rates, as Leonie or Lysithea invalidate several units just by existing. 

[FoxyGrandpa]

While I like Three Houses more than Fates, Fates will always hold a special place in my heart for being the first FE game I bought on launch day. And I agree that there are a number of things it does better than 3 houses. Gameplay-wise, I really loved a ton of the general systems present in Fates because it allowed for so much freedom during combat. Offensive pair ups were really fun to use due to how they interacted with certain weapon types like Brave weapons and allowed for some clever strategies to dispatch of enemies (i.e. using an offensive pair up with a Bow unique to defeat a flier). Its pretty easy for a new player to understand, yet drastically affected gameplay & how offense and defensive tactics were approach. I've seen people complain about certain systems in the game, like Silver Weapons decreasing your own attack, or weapon ranks being hard to grind, but a lot of these complaints look at these systems in a Vacuum rather than seeing it in the context of the game. Weapon Ranks actually aren't that difficult to grind when making use of pair up and Silver weapon's higher might & lack of speed penalty makes them more useful with offensive pair ups rather than just individually.

Three Houses' design seems more like a hybrid of Shadow Dragon and Echoes. It gives you a TON of flexibility in customizing your units & places a higher emphasis on stats over skills. Its skill floor is a lot lower than Fates, where you needed to think about how to approach certain scenarios, but its skill ceiling is also lower. That being said, divine pulse + enemy indicators makes it much easier to just casually play. 

Narrative, Three Houses just blows Fates out of the water. I think my biggest problem with Fates is that it tries to have its cake and eat it too. The existence of things like the Invisible Kingdom, Deeprealms, etc. undermines the conflict of the main game just to justify a golden path and child units, respectively. I would have rather the castle be present in Hoshido / Nohr depending on which route you choose & get attacked by enemy soldier of the opposite kingdom. The Hoshidan sibling aren't really your siblings only to justify S-supporting them. Honestly, some of the world-building that actually is present is kind of interesting, like Garon having multiple wives, Beruka's father killing Oboro's parents, etc. but its really undermined by all of the in-cohesive shit that it feels pointless. Three Houses has a plot that's also filled with details, but a lot of these details are consistent with each other, so it makes the world feel stronger. The Ashen Wolves's side story for example, is a ridiculous concept on paper. A secret 4th house? But the plot justifies it in a way that makes sense (its a slum that the church overseas but doesn't particularly care for) and it adds layers to the world that weren't there otherwise.

Edited March 13, 2020 by FoxyGrandpa

[NolanBaumgartner]

3 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

One thing that really bothered me about Three Houses is the class system pretty robust and fun to build around, but the problem stems from the game encouraging multiple playthroughs and the fact the starting units are basically blank slates allowing for full customization and reused maps. It ends up giving the routes a severe lack of variety between each house as all the houses must have a white mage,black mage,archer, and to make things worse they seem to have very similar growths between the archetypes. 

 

In Fire Emblem Echoes imagine if both routes had a similar cast of characters unit wise. Celica's route was unique because it consisted of a bunch of magic units with several mercenaries. Alm's route was a bit more customizable with the villagers and was a more well balanced team. Also THEY DON'T REUSE MAPS. Granted a lot of Echoes maps in general were really bad on both sides. 

If they keep the Three Houses class system in the next game, I want to see the starting cast of units start out as intermediate classes and just cut out the beginner and noble/commoner classes. It just slows the early game down by a crap ton. 4 movement on every unit is so awful. 

Different characters do learn different skills and have different skill growths, which plays a huge role in deciding what your team composition will be like, independent of stat growths. I do like that you have the freedom for off-the-board reclassing, yet characters are clearly optimized for certain classes and playstyles. Because it's entirely possible to complete a "normal" playthrough without recruiting most characters, I find the flexibility necessary, specially in a game where bad RNG can render a character useless.

[~Flavius~]

This! Fates often gets treated like absolute garbage and that's not the case at all. I'm not gonna sit here and say that Fates is some secret masterpiece that nobody understands since it does have problems. The stories in all three routes are really contrived and the emotion it wants to draw out of you feels so artificial. I will admit that Three Houses has a better story and better pacing for said story. The pieces fall where they should and each route offers an interesting take on the big picture. Fates story was ambitious for what it wanted to do, but it dropped the ball in every way with mediocre villains, Valla feeling really shoe horned in, and overall just acting like Corrin was the end all be all for all the royals involved. That's not to say Byleth doesn't get this treatment too sometimes, but the lords clearly have their own objectives they want to accomplish. Much more than "I need to get my brother/sister back!".

People often say the characters in Three Houses is a step up from those in Fates, but are they really? I feel like in Three Houses, characters often rely on their tropes in their c supports like Bernadetta and her "aaaaaaahhhhh! I have anxiety and am paranoid!" with Funny Footsteps playing the background schtik. Then in their later supports, then they decide to get serious and have some backstory and stuff which is nice, but it feels like a cop out after having these really icky c supports. Fates does this too admittedly, but it gets chastised way more for it. Fates supports honestly are really solid and I feel they don't shy away from just having a light hearted, fun support. Some characters are designed to be quirky and fun (like Keaton, Effie, Setsuna, etc.) and I think that's totally fine! Past games have had fun characters too and they didn't need some secret edgy backstory to make them feel like a "real" or "interesting" character. Characters like Bernadetta and Lysithea feel really jarring when one minute, they're quirky characters and then the next minute, they're talking about their abusive father or how they were experimented on. I'm not saying quirky characters can't have serious moments. Keaton shows this with Peri about how he thinks it's wrong to kill things just for the sake of it, but he started out serious from the beginning in that support chain. He and other Fates characters don't flip flop back and forth between serious and silly like Three Houses characters do. Long story short, I think Three Houses does have nice characters, but they're not exemplary and the characters in Fates are better than people say they are.

Gameplay, Fates Conquest BLOWS Three Houses out of the water! Conquest is amazing in it's map design, units, etc. and each difficulty is fair and balanced (except the very late game of Lunatic. Three Houses hard mode is too easy and maddening is not exactly hard, but really annoying. Especially in the early parts of the game where Byleth is the only real competent unit and even they struggle. After that, it pretty much becomes a Byleth solo. Birthright isn't my cup of tea, but it's not as easily exploitable as Three Houses. Revelation... sucks ass just pretend it doesn't exist lol. I finished maddening Three Houses without ng+ and it was only really fun during the mid game. The early game is super slow and the end game is Byleth just killing everything lol. Conquest is fun the entire way through (with some exceptions, but all FE games have a couple icky maps).

 

At the end of the day, especially considering Conquest was my first game, I like it better. Keep in mind I've played every game in the series except 1-3, so I've played unorthodox games like Echoes and Genealogy (a game I personally adore). I don't have a problem with games breaking the mold, but sandboxy FE games like Awakening and Three Houses don't do a lot for me. It really becomes a snore fest when only the avatar and maybe a couple other units just dominate the game. The story is really the only thing I like better in Three Houses. It's a good game, sure! But I'll come back to Fates for years to come. I can't say the same thing for Three Houses.

Edited April 15, 2020 by ~Flavius~

[Obito]

I like Fates better too. I'm going to be honest, 3H is a piece of 💩 in my opinion, the same as Echoes. The only character I like is Dimitri. The entire cast is forgettable. Which is worse than hatred because at least that makes me feel something. This game felt so hollow and unsatisfying. The gameplay sucks ass like Echoes. Bows are so OP there's no reason to use anything else. Magic ignoring terrain is something I didn't like in Echoes and it returns. Why put this crap on a pedestal? Only thing it loses to is bows. No pair-up disgusts me beyond words because attack stance is my favorite part of Fates. Weapon durability returning was not welcome. Yes, silver weapons sucked in Fates but weapons that give 20 avoid will be missed. The fact every character can be any class and use any weapon makes no one unique. The teaching aspect was cool at first but felt like a chore from the 2nd act onward. The skill system is weak with barely any desirable skills. Offensive skills like Astra got 💩 on and is Luna even available? Byleth sucks major dong as well. Corrin is bad but I'll take them over a goddamn mute. I'm sure there's more negatives but this all I can think of for now. I beat Blue Lions route once and quit. So goddamn boring. Never felt compelled to finish the other routes and never will. I've played every FE game since Awakening but after Echoes and this, 2 💩 games in a row, I refuse to buy another if it keeps Echoes style gameplay. Fates, on the other hand, I still play to this day. Look me up Fates fans. My castle is called Swordmasters.