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What do you guys think about Three houses and the future of the series?


Dinar87
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Given how Three Houses was like a soft remake of Genealogy of the Holy War, I fully expect we'll see a remake of that as the next installment. They know there's a fan base for it what with it being a game not localized in the west and Three Houses has shown how that style of game can work.

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I don't think that future Fire Emblem games will take after the core concept of Three Houses. Things like the monastery section or the teaching mechanics are very peculiar traits that wouldn't really make sense without a highschool. The next setting won't be Hogwards again and I think IS has the sense not to repeat things that only really made sense in a school.

I think we can expect to see battalions again. Fire Emblem has always been about armies so their presence just inherently makes sense. Whether they'd copy the exact mechanic from Three Houses or rework it remains to be seen but we'll definitely haven't seen the last of battalions. 

The success of Three Houses will likely decrease the reliance on fanservice and especially its more cringey variants. Three Houses did great even without having to drag the child mechanic into the game and the designs are all fairly tame. Its not without fanservice but on the whole Three Houses didn't rely on that sweet fanservice money and hasn't suffered for it. This does send a clear message that its not required for financial success. 

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40 minutes ago, UNLEASH IT said:

I don't understand why your base can't just be a bunch of random tents (or just a series of menus). Returning to the monastery between every single chapter was super jarring, especially combined with the calendar system.

The base can be barracks easily. Depending of the setting, the returning base would change.

I don't see monastery/church set returning again, unless they release a direct sequel or prequel to the Three Houses. 

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I loved how Three Houses took inspiration from Echoes in regards to magic and archers. Now I feel free to use top-tier spells like fortify and warp while being assured that they'll be available in later chapters, while archers are now kings of range rather than the 2 range nukes they were in Fates. I do hope that future entries will cut back a bit on the menus though, in TH there's menus for weapon management with repairing and replacing used weapons, switching out combat arts for maps with certain enemy makeup, switching out abilities for when a new one is obtained, AND managing battalions, not to mention assigning adjutants.

Then there's the monastery sections which, while a great way of interacting with your units and NPCs, also drags down the pace of the gameplay, but for me the monastery only really became non-essential in the latter half of the timeskip. At this point in time your units are likely in their final classes, and any development in skill ranks is extremely slow since they're likely at A level or above. You can't really get much stronger at this point in the game.

I'm also hoping that IS plays around with Support Conversations in the next entry. It's a bit tiring to suddenly have tons of convos dumped on you, and I kinda wish that there are three-person supports so that there's less convos to sift through.

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Three Houses quite frankly was a bold approach for them, but it worked. I still have many problems with it though and wouldn't want them to repeat a lot of what they've done in Three Houses. Choosing multiple routes again was gutsy I felt, but it worked better than Fates and it certainly helped that they placed it into a single game. It isn't completely new for there to be different routes in Fire Emblem, that's existed since Blazing Sword. But Fates and Three Houses is obviously far different than the past games in that regard. It worked this time, but I definitely don't think they should make another game with multiple routes. If they do, I think they should do it where the multiple routes end up merging. Really, in Fates and Three Houses you should be able to recruit all characters throughout the game.

I don't want to see the Monastery return, unless Ig for a Genealogy of the Holy War remake. I wasn't a big fan of it and I don't even want to see them try to pull it off with non-student characters. I understand them wanting to give a breather in between chapters, but I don't really need it. I don't think we'll be seeing an academy again, but it's likely there'll be some kind of home base you can roam around in. Maybe it'll work, but we'll see.

They need to add postgame playability in the next game. That just bothers me so much that they didn't do that. Maybe it's because they wanted more focus on the NG+ and/or they didn't know how to deal with it with the calendar (which needs to be cut from the next game). But the former would be bad reasoning as the game has good replayability, as many of the Fire Emblem games do. There needs to be something you can do though, some kind of DLC maps or training tower thing that you can use your trained units with.

GET RID OF THE AVATAR. Oh my goodness, somehow, they made the avatar worse than before. Awakening, was really cool, but it was just a customizable character. They weren't really you or separate from the game at all. But they weren't the main character, Chrom was, so that was good. Then Fates came and brought the avatar back again, this time, making them the main character. It was a mistake and made me truly tire of the avatars. I'd prefer it more if they were far more minor. Then there's Byleth. Who you are suprisingly able to give far more responses with, in fact, every conversation you are choosing what to say. Yet when they do this, the character doesn't have much customization. You choose the gender and name? Lol what? What is the point? Like for real, just name the character Byleth, choose a gender, and freaking make them an actual character with dialogue. It was dumb and made no sense. They somehow made things worse. Byleth as a male was fine and Byleth as a female was fine, I really couldn't care less which one they chose. But they should've chose one and not made them customizable. Ugh. I never want to see a Fire Emblem avatar character again, especially as the MC.

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Only thing I really want to improve gameplay wise in the future is more variable maps and more meaningful auxiliary battles (instead of same 10 maps)

Original design plan had a "trading" function that seems have to do with war situations, like you only control resources in your territory could only trade with area you are allied with, this could make auxiliary battle more interesting as you could conquer/defend territories.

 

Storywise, I really wish they make a prequel sometimes in the future. They left so much cliffhangers in this game that weren't explained, such as whole deal with Sothis.

Edited by Timlugia
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18 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

Original design plan had a "trading" function that seems have to do with war situations, like you only control resources in your territory could only trade with area you are allied with, this could make auxiliary battle more interesting as you could conquer/defend territories.

Interesting, I've never heard of this before. Was this in the Nintendo Dream interview recently or somewhere else?

 

Anyways, I like Three Houses a lot. While it definitely has its shortcomings (especially with regards to the monastery getting tedious after a while/on repeat playthroughs), it has the most interesting and fleshed out world with some of the best characters, main and supporting, in the entire series. About the only thing negative I can say about it is Byleth as an avatar: either make them more customizable by, say, getting to influence your spell and combat art list if you want them to be a full player insert, or make them a character focused on actually overcoming their emotional... dead-ness. And please get rid of the avatar worship, I had enough of that in Fates. The battle system (that is, magic system, combat arts and battalions) is also my favorite in the series.  

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21 minutes ago, Alistair said:

Interesting, I've never heard of this before. Was this in the Nintendo Dream interview recently or somewhere else?

It's from a dataminer's wiki, listed out tons of used texts.

From reading the text describing each regions, maybe it was tied in with war situation.

https://tcrf.net/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses

Edited by Timlugia
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I think Three Houses had a lot of stuff done right: like character customization, 4 paths with different story (that you don't have to pay for), a lot of support conversations, etc.

But I agree the monastery part gets tiring after you play half of the game or when you replay the game, it was something so cool at the beginning and after 15 chapters I found myself exhausted of having to go there again to get my students to max motivation for the classes. 

But what bothered me the most is that I missed the typical aspect of FE games where you get characters from chapter to chapter: like you start battling with 3 characters then you get 2 more, then 1, etc. And it feels like you can really choose who you want to use and who not from a huge poll of chracters you end uo having. In Three Houses you get all students at once, you can recruit other students but it can be quite tiring and also it feels not canonical, and yes, you can recruit the professors/knights, but to me they are not really interesting. I feel like every route has such few character cast to choose from (if you don't recruit other students) so probably you end up just using the students of the house you're playing. Also all of the students are like pretty teenagers and the art style makes them (mostly the girls) look quite identical. I would've liked more variety of ages, bodies and styles of characters. 

Also I lowkey hated the maps, but because of the textures and colors they used. 

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No reason to assume the series will continue in this direction. Remember when people thought games would all be like the GBA ones? All like the Awakening/Fates ones? I enjoyed 3H, probably my favorite in the series, but things change. No one can predict the future.

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3 houses is one of my favorites and I don’t want anything like it ever again. 
 

things I want removed 
 

-Avatar main character. This is the worst part about fates and three houses. 
it is fine to go to awakening style where the avatar is never the main character, but even then being that involved was too much. Why do we need it? Gaiden and Telluis games were great. 
 

-Monastery. It was a lot of fun the first playthrough. But now it sucks having to run around do fetch quests or navigate through it. However, I’d rather this than Gaidan’s dungeons. Maybe I’m stuck in the past but I much prefer RD base system 

-Teaching/war planning. It was fun, but I am done with it for 2 reasons. 
1. it’s really easy to make everyone OP 

2. even though I love 3H, I still believe making everyone able to be any class takes away a bit of unique personality from the classes themselves. I’m not saying every axe wielder being the “ax bro”  we used to get is the right answer, but literally everyone being able to be an axe wielder isn’t either imo. 
 

I would like them to continue making units more specialized as they go however. Maybe mages can use all elements but inky E/D tank. Then healers, dark mages, anima mages. Etc all split up into 3 tiered classes 

 

and I’d like the next game to change the recruitment method. I don’t like thst all playable characters are around at the beginning. I like building the army as I go. Last map units kinda suck, and only serve to beef up the army if I screwed up and killed too many people; but if there is a NG+ that has a tower battle like SS did, then that kinda corrects that. Or other sidequests like how Priam and Walhart could only join awakening before the last map, but could be used for dlc maps and have special dialogues (but maybe not make them dlc lol) 

 

I love how supports are more well written. Not everyone can support/marry everyone, so sorry shippers; but the romantic supports mean a lot more imo this time around. 

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One thing I really don't like is the class system. It felt like there is no point to stay in Hero class or Warrior without leveling Brawling at the same time. I still prefer branching promotion in Fate and Awakening (I miss Griffon Rider). Gender-locking class is also terrible for me, since Fates already let you have male pegasus rider. 

One small thing to nitpick about, I really don't like noble/commoner class. As I was starting my 4th run earlier, I felt like the first 5 levels were wasted with the growth in those two classes.

While I love that magic uses being refreshed every map, I don't like that spell list is pre-determined. Byleth doesn't even get Physic, and I hate fire-type magic. I wish they would at least let us customize Byleth spell list. 

And finally Byleth, i was really upset that we can't choose intial starting class. And his stats and growth just scream physical. Unlike previous Avatars where we can choose to have extra growth in magic or defence etc. I have always love the avatar system since FE12 but I think this is my least fav implementation.

Story wise I like the flow of it. Academy phase is more well paced (except that month where we leave Flayn bleeding for weeks) while it doesn't make sence for war phase to keep taking one month for each chapter. I still much prefer Awakening style, where it has different arc and diff big bad that doesn't relate with each other. Which is why GD is my fav route simply becuz of Nemesis that came out of no where (CF could be too if only they continue to fight TWSID). World building is my least cared aspect in FE. Naga knows how fast I skipped those dialogues when it comes to explaning backstory and past events. Nonetheless, I like most of the characters. I just wish Judith and Empire generals can be made playable as well.

I think why I keep playing FE is bcuz each installment is different enough than the last one I dont feel repetitive. So safe to say I still have high hopes for the series as long as they keep trying to balance rpg and strategy aspects.

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Now that I think about it, the amount of world-building compared to Fates and Awakening might point to a better probability of a sequel or prequel. I don't know how you would do a sequel without canonizing a route, or none, which wouldn't really bother me but would probably bother the rest of the fanbase.

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TH is easily one of my favourite games in the entire series, competing heavily with Genealogy. The story, lore and characters are phenomenal and surpass Jugral in that regard (for me at least). I liked the dark theme TH went for as it was also what made me love Genealogy. I just think that TH did it better due to how everyone was morally gray and not inherently evil they are all people who act on treir beliefs, just following them means that some people must die. Foldan as a world is extremely interesting with all that backstory and lore and the characters are really memorable. I would love future games keeping this gray morality and dark themes. Also it offers the entire experience in one cartridge and not as separate games, not to hate on fates but it's was a petty move to say the least.

 

Gameplay wise, TH did some really good things but messed up in certain areas also. New ideas like the Gambits, battalions, the Combat arts that were improved from Echoes, also though sceptical about it the way the weapon triangle became optional was something I admit I enjoyed at the end, adjutants were a pretty fun system to play with. These are the stuff that with some balancing and or just as it is I hope that can carry over to a new title. Also NG+ and Maddening are extremely fun and though nearly all games have this super crazy difficulty, the idea of NG+ especially combined with said difficultly made the experience way more enjoyable and fun. I think that the next game even if a remake should have NG+ as it made the experience way better.  

 

However, to say that TH doesn't have flaws would be a lie. The map design is really bad, with some exceptions of course but generally most maps were reused and boring and the fact that multiple replays are a must, some maps become simply unbearable. Also the class system is not so enjoyable, the idea of being able to be whatever you want is interesting but most units end up doing the same things mastering the same classes and leaving creativity out. Also mastering some classes gave combat arts that you could not use outside of said class undermining arts like Astra as there are better classes than swordmaster. I just think that skills were way too passive especially support oriented ones as they only had 1 range. Lastly my biggest complain is how tedious replaying White Clouds is after multiple playthroughs, it becomes a grind and the monastery especially during the war phase can tire you out a lot. I think that exploration in form of dungeons as in Echoes was way better and it made me extremely sad that it wasn't in the game. The classes and maps can easily be fixed for a future game. However, I would like the monastery to either become less tedious or be removed as it drains from the enjoyment (however interacting with the characters like that was really nice).

 

To sum up TH did many things correct and definitely they should move to other games in some form. For example, the story and the new implementations in the gameplay that changed the typical FE formula like battalions, monster enemies etc. However, stuff like Maps and classes should be improved and the base should not be the center of the gameplay. 

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On 4/28/2020 at 3:24 PM, anikom15 said:

Now that I think about it, the amount of world-building compared to Fates and Awakening might point to a better probability of a sequel or prequel. I don't know how you would do a sequel without canonizing a route, or none, which wouldn't really bother me but would probably bother the rest of the fanbase.

So much in this game screams about a follow up title

Like pretty much every arc of Sothis was ended in cliffhangers,

she keeps talking about getting her memory back, we even have a paralouge about yet she told you nothing about her discovery; she talks about her true form and adult body, even Rhea implied her wolf form in DLC, (that Ashen Wolf was named after her) yet again was never revealed to us. Or everything about true nature and power of Sothis; truth of Agarthan War; or between Sothis, Rhea and Nemesis...there are so many question just about Sothis.

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5 minutes ago, Timlugia said:

So much in this game screams about a follow up title

Like pretty much every arc of Sothis was ended in cliffhangers,

she keeps talking about getting her memory back, we even have a paralouge about yet she told you nothing about her discovery; she talks about her true form and adult body, even Rhea implied her wolf form in DLC, (that Ashen Wolf was named after her) yet again was never revealed to us. Or everything about true nature and power of Sothis; truth of Agarthan War; or between Sothis, Rhea and Nemesis...there are so many question just about Sothis.

I would love an Awakening styled game but with Fodlan. Archanea, thousands of years after Marth's wars and after more events, is named Ylise and Marth is a legend. For example thousand of years after Edelgard's war another conflict happened that made the truth of what happened during Edel's war uncertain (keeping the no canon/golden route thing that the developers want). The focus can be Sothis and the Nabateans and the world so many years after this great war and the other event (like Grima's and the first Exalt's battle). We could have Seteth, Flayn be present. No Rhea however as she is killed in some routes or is really weak in some others. It could work with some refinement. Or a war of heroes prequel about Seiros, Nemesis and the Nabateans.

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Honestly I really do love Three Houses. But therein lies my fear. I also loved Awakening.

And then they took the popularity of Awakening and created the awful mess that was Fates. Which to be fair, taught me that no matter how fun the gameplay is (I genuinely think Conquest had great gameplay), if the story/characters are trash, I literally cannot finish a game.

And so I'm afraid they'll take the popularity of Three Houses and churn out a similar, but inevitably worse game as a response. But my true hope is that they take the core of Three Houses (an intriguing, realistic story, paired with great characters), tone down the Monastery portion (which while I did love it, was as everyone has stated, overbearing doing it 4 times), and bring back that Sacred Stones/Tellius vibe of war.

Honestly, I'm sorta done with the split routes. I think Fates executed it terribly, and honestly I don't think Three Houses executed it the best. One, it should have just been 3 routes (though honestly I think they could have just done 2 routes), and I think the monastery portion should have been significantly different with unique monthly requests depending on the house chosen.

Map design could also have been substantially improved/different instead of just the same map from different angles (admittedly some of the angles were fun). I really liked Ashen Wolves cause the maps there were fun and different, as well as challenging, so I hope they can improve upon that.

But story/character wise I hope they keep creating dynamic characters and not tropes. I loved both Edelgard and Dimitri. And even though I hate Rhea, I love how she was written and the fact she inspires such hatred. It's the mark of a well-written character imo.

I see a lot of people complaining about the genre mash-up/3H getting away from the true strategy RPG, but honestly I don't think the game would survive just sticking to one thing. It wasn't surviving sticking to one thing. As much nostalgia as I have for the old games I played as a kid, I think the evolution has been really necessary and good for the series. I don't see why there needs to be such a divide between the new and the old, because nothing stays the same, so naturally we'll have to look forward to how it keeps evolving. I don't think 3H is the end of the series evolution. Though I did enjoy the Persona 5 elements. Haha.

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