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Three Houses has now been out for one year! How have your opinions on it changed since release?


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23 hours ago, whase said:

I'm actually surprised about the amount of negativity in this thread. Not saying people who didn't like it shouldn't be saying so or whatever, but I'm just surprised. The game has been very well received by most of my friends and myself, despite, it's true, its obvious flaws.

While reading this thread, I also once again wonder how people feel replaying an older FE game. Is it really that much worse replaying this game vs an older game? If anything I'd say this game has more replay value than previous FEs, especially when using your renown well.

Me too. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Hardcore communities tend to have very opinionated views on games. Like if you go to Pokemon forums, people will complain how Sun and Moon are the worst in the series, or how Persona fans complain how Persona 5 sucks because it too easy. I'd like to warn that we are a minority here and most people who played this game love it. I gave this game to my brother as his first Fire Emblem and he loved it.

As for me, I love it too. Its one of those games that I have a constant desire to replay this, despite finishing everything. It's not perfect, but most things it does its done correctly, and the flaws I can let it slide. 2 things before I go any further: I'm going to address the common criticisms, and the only games I actually played prior to 3 Houses were the 3DS games, so those are the only comparisons I will make. 

Difficulty: The games definitely feel easier than the 3DS games. However, I do not mind this. And I can definitely understand why. Fire Emblem games were notoriously difficult between classic mode as well as complex map design. That kind of design requires a lot of dedication and time to plan a strategy, and a lot of people don't want to/or don't have the time to build those strategies. This advanced strategy is probably what turned off a lot of people internationally, lowering sales potentially to cancellation, which is what Awakening faced. The introduction of casual mode and generally easier difficulty makes it more accessible to newbies. As someone who a college student who is doing internships, I don't have time to dedicate several hours to a complex map in order to beat it. The majority of people are not hardcore fans who will want to dedicate several hours developing strategies as well, chances are we will make progress relatively quickly. That's not to say that we don't want a challenge, we just don't want to spend too much time on one chapter when we have hobbies and other video games to play. Many other video games have done very forgiving video game difficulties, like how Xenoblade Chronicles, Catherine Full Body, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have swappable difficulties to tailor to hardcore fans and casual fans. Maddening is 3 Houses version of that, serving as a bridge between Hardcore and casual fans. 

Monastery: Yeah, I definitely see where people come from when they find it tedious. That being said, you are not required to do any of the activities - you could skip immediately to the next battle by using the skip function on the calendar. In a similar vein, the Developers introduced New Game + in order to reduce time on that grind, you could buy back skill levels, supports, and weapon ranks using renown, which carries over. Its quite obvious that the developers intended the game to be played like with NG+ at the start of every play through as a way to reduce the grind. However, I still really enjoyed the monastery for what it had to offer. Personally, speaking, I really loved tea parties. They were fun a little mini game that really encouraged you to understand your students by paying attention to supports, gift giving, and paying attention to dislikes and likes for food. Speaking of which, the Monastery reflects the main theme of 3 Houses: How precious your time as friends are and how quickly that can change. Spend some time with the students- get to know each other- they can potentially join your class. A lot of RPGs encourage the players to take some time off to go explore the world and do things like quests or grind materials to gain new perks, or improve relations with party members. This is 3 Houses way of doing this. 

Gameplay wise, I found that it was sufficient to do the Monastery to do it only once on my Maddening play through and still be sufficiently trained for the battles ahead. I never felt that I was wasting time exploring.  

Map wise: A lot goes under difficulty. I do agree that maps are far too reused with no objective variation, and while I can forgive a simpler map design due to wanting to keep it accessible, Its very noticeable when lot of the premise overlaps, which happens a lot between SS, VW, and AM. Even CF, which has a different premise, shares a lot of map objective overlap it which also make it boring to play through. Its not even that difficult either, I thought the Fhirdiad map in CF vs AM was a good example of the same map, but a different layout can still make it interesting and feel completely different when playing on the same map on different campaigns. Fates also had similar thing going for its map design, with Fort Jinya being a map featuring different layouts and enemies on each visit during the campaign. 

Story: The dynamic between Edelgard, Dimitri, and Rhea was very well fleshed out. The infinite debates on whose good and evil shows how effective the plot is. That being said, the game didn't need 4 routes to get this feeling. Honestly, it could just have been Edelgard vs Dimitri/Rhea, two paths, and the game could have been fine. The only actual difference between AM and SS map wise is the Fhirdiad Map. That could even provide more time for Edelgard's route. Sadly, Claude really does feel out of place here. His idea of ending racism is only lip service for the most part, with the only action of an additional Almyran general helping Claude in that goal during the Fort Merceus invasion. Everything else takes place in his epilogue, where its stated he helped establish peace between Fodlan and Almyra. Claude would require a massive redesign in his route to establish his ideals.Overall, the story, while great, still has traces of needed time  of being fleshed out, especially from a game point perspective. 

As for individuals characters, everyone is great. Everyone has a reason to be upset, and how Fodlan's society affects them can be felt by everyone. The supports here often feel more serious, as people are reflecting upon change from the academy to war, and how their alliance affects them. The fact that characters are so well thought out and have their own share of qualms and how they go through them is a great reason to recruit characters on different routes and see how they grow and interact on that route is a major reason why this game is so hard to drop. Not to mention the game is fully voiced-literally- from the Main characters to the minor NPCs really make the characters feel alive. Kudos to Patrick Seitz- he really knew which Voice Actor matched which character, and paid off in the end. 

Visuals: The game looks like a PS2 game. The character models have been given the most attention, so that's definitely a +. However, the lack of animations start to show off quite poorly when characters reuse several generic poses that do not fit the character's personality. That being said, I do appreciate what they have done with support conversations, with each having a background, as well as paying attention details to which campaign you are on, what part you are on, and which class you are taking to name a few. As for glitches, most were very minor and did not slow the game that much from my experience. As someone who does 2D animation, the 2D cutscenes are really entertaining to watch and really well animated, like how Dimitri psyche breaks when Edelgard is revealed as the Flame Emperor, or how wailing is reverse of the opening cutscene.  Overall, while the game is not the prettiest game on the Switch, its definitely an improvement visuals in Fire Emblem.

 

The DLC was bad though. Most of it was just cosmetics, and while the new characters were nice and I had fun using them, they weren’t worth 25$. I wish they brought back the 3DS method of purchasing the DLC separately. That would have been a lot better.

 

This is pretty long, so I'm stopping here. My only major criticism is that the maps and premise are too similar between the routes. It definitely feels like a slog when you do something like Silver Snow then Verdant Wind, and the similar map design doesn't do any favors. It does hurt the replaybility in the sense that you are playing multiple maps twice, and while the narrative is different enough make each path worth playing, once you know the story, the game's sameness definitely starts to show a lot more when you AM and then start to do Verdant Wind again. I'd give 3 Houses 8/10. The aforementioned similarity between the story hurts playthroughs once you've learned the story, but the new additions are enjoyable and add a more variance to how you progress your play through. 

 

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1 hour ago, ZeManaphy said:

Me too. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Hardcore communities tend to have very opinionated views on games. Like if you go to Pokemon forums, people will complain how Sun and Moon are the worst in the series, or how Persona fans complain how Persona 5 sucks because it too easy. I'd like to warn that we are a minority here and most people who played this game love it. I gave this game to my brother as his first Fire Emblem and he loved it.

As for me, I love it too. Its one of those games that I have a constant desire to replay this, despite finishing everything. It's not perfect, but most things it does its done correctly, and the flaws I can let it slide. 2 things before I go any further: I'm going to address the common criticisms, and the only games I actually played prior to 3 Houses were the 3DS games, so those are the only comparisons I will make. 

Difficulty: The games definitely feel easier than the 3DS games. However, I do not mind this. And I can definitely understand why. Fire Emblem games were notoriously difficult between classic mode as well as complex map design. That kind of design requires a lot of dedication and time to plan a strategy, and a lot of people don't want to/or don't have the time to build those strategies. This advanced strategy is probably what turned off a lot of people internationally, lowering sales potentially to cancellation, which is what Awakening faced. The introduction of casual mode and generally easier difficulty makes it more accessible to newbies. As someone who a college student who is doing internships, I don't have time to dedicate several hours to a complex map in order to beat it. The majority of people are not hardcore fans who will want to dedicate several hours developing strategies as well, chances are we will make progress relatively quickly. That's not to say that we don't want a challenge, we just don't want to spend too much time on one chapter when we have hobbies and other video games to play. Many other video games have done very forgiving video game difficulties, like how Xenoblade Chronicles, Catherine Full Body, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate have swappable difficulties to tailor to hardcore fans and casual fans. Maddening is 3 Houses version of that, serving as a bridge between Hardcore and casual fans. 

Monastery: Yeah, I definitely see where people come from when they find it tedious. That being said, you are not required to do any of the activities - you could skip immediately to the next battle by using the skip function on the calendar. In a similar vein, the Developers introduced New Game + in order to reduce time on that grind, you could buy back skill levels, supports, and weapon ranks using renown, which carries over. Its quite obvious that the developers intended the game to be played like with NG+ at the start of every play through as a way to reduce the grind. However, I still really enjoyed the monastery for what it had to offer. Personally, speaking, I really loved tea parties. They were fun a little mini game that really encouraged you to understand your students by paying attention to supports, gift giving, and paying attention to dislikes and likes for food. Speaking of which, the Monastery reflects the main theme of 3 Houses: How precious your time as friends are and how quickly that can change. Spend some time with the students- get to know each other- they can potentially join your class. A lot of RPGs encourage the players to take some time off to go explore the world and do things like quests or grind materials to gain new perks, or improve relations with party members. This is 3 Houses way of doing this. 

Gameplay wise, I found that it was sufficient to do the Monastery to do it only once on my Maddening play through and still be sufficiently trained for the battles ahead. I never felt that I was wasting time exploring.  

Map wise: A lot goes under difficulty. I do agree that maps are far too reused with no objective variation, and while I can forgive a simpler map design due to wanting to keep it accessible, Its very noticeable when lot of the premise overlaps, which happens a lot between SS, VW, and AM. Even CF, which has a different premise, shares a lot of map objective overlap it which also make it boring to play through. Its not even that difficult either, I thought the Fhirdiad map in CF vs AM was a good example of the same map, but a different layout can still make it interesting and feel completely different when playing on the same map on different campaigns. Fates also had similar thing going for its map design, with Fort Jinya being a map featuring different layouts and enemies on each visit during the campaign. 

Story: The dynamic between Edelgard, Dimitri, and Rhea was very well fleshed out. The infinite debates on whose good and evil shows how effective the plot is. That being said, the game didn't need 4 routes to get this feeling. Honestly, it could just have been Edelgard vs Dimitri/Rhea, two paths, and the game could have been fine. The only actual difference between AM and SS map wise is the Fhirdiad Map. That could even provide more time for Edelgard's route. Sadly, Claude really does feel out of place here. His idea of ending racism is only lip service for the most part, with the only action of an additional Almyran general helping Claude in that goal during the Fort Merceus invasion. Everything else takes place in his epilogue, where its stated he helped establish peace between Fodlan and Almyra. Claude would require a massive redesign in his route to establish his ideals.Overall, the story, while great, still has traces of needed time  of being fleshed out, especially from a game point perspective. 

As for individuals characters, everyone is great. Everyone has a reason to be upset, and how Fodlan's society affects them can be felt by everyone. The supports here often feel more serious, as people are reflecting upon change from the academy to war, and how their alliance affects them. The fact that characters are so well thought out and have their own share of qualms and how they go through them is a great reason to recruit characters on different routes and see how they grow and interact on that route is a major reason why this game is so hard to drop. Not to mention the game is fully voiced-literally- from the Main characters to the minor NPCs really make the characters feel alive. Kudos to Patrick Seitz- he really knew which Voice Actor matched which character, and paid off in the end. 

Visuals: The game looks like a PS2 game. The character models have been given the most attention, so that's definitely a +. However, the lack of animations start to show off quite poorly when characters reuse several generic poses that do not fit the character's personality. That being said, I do appreciate what they have done with support conversations, with each having a background, as well as paying attention details to which campaign you are on, what part you are on, and which class you are taking to name a few. As for glitches, most were very minor and did not slow the game that much from my experience. As someone who does 2D animation, the 2D cutscenes are really entertaining to watch and really well animated, like how Dimitri psyche breaks when Edelgard is revealed as the Flame Emperor, or how wailing is reverse of the opening cutscene.  Overall, while the game is not the prettiest game on the Switch, its definitely an improvement visuals in Fire Emblem.

 

The DLC was bad though. Most of it was just cosmetics, and while the new characters were nice and I had fun using them, they weren’t worth 25$. I wish they brought back the 3DS method of purchasing the DLC separately. That would have been a lot better.

 

This is pretty long, so I'm stopping here. My only major criticism is that the maps and premise are too similar between the routes. It definitely feels like a slog when you do something like Silver Snow then Verdant Wind, and the similar map design doesn't do any favors. It does hurt the replaybility in the sense that you are playing multiple maps twice, and while the narrative is different enough make each path worth playing, once you know the story, the game's sameness definitely starts to show a lot more when you AM and then start to do Verdant Wind again. I'd give 3 Houses 8/10. The aforementioned similarity between the story hurts playthroughs once you've learned the story, but the new additions are enjoyable and add a more variance to how you progress your play through. 

 

I think its a fair statement. I started playing FE back in high school when I was first exposed to emulators. FE7 was my first Fire Emblem game. I dipped in and out of the series over the years. It wasn't until Awakening that I really got into it because they offered casual mode. Which is really nice because I can at least get my feet wet with the series until I am more comfortable with taking on classic mode.

Three Houses I do like for different reasons like giving characters the freedom on how they progress rather than being saddled with classes you're stuck with i.e Virion can only be a archer, mage or wyvern rider. I have looked at Blue Lions and Golden Deer at full so far (currently doing Black Eagles though I do know all about the 1st half of Black Eagles), at the moment Blue Lions is my favorite story in terms of being invested into someone's story arc. Granted I can see where it wasn't perfectly done (not all great games have any sort of perfection), but I did appreciate how the game shows us what happens when you go down that dark road. 

Golden Deer I do like hearing about the lore of the game and I do like Claude as a protagonist, he kind of felt like he was a passenger in this story. His goals are admirable, wanting to end prejudice and racism (which what we all could use in this day and age), it felt secondary in comparison to their war with the empire and then TWSITD. I don't think this arc was that bad but I can see where people would think it's the weakest of the 4 routes in terms of story anyways. It depends on what order you do actually that affects your perspective

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On the routes: Originally after seeing the whole game I was torn between liking Azure Moon and Crimson Flower best, leaning if anything towards Azure Moon. As time has gone on I've definitely come down on the Crimson Flower side, though, as I feel it's by far the most important route in a game which ultimately is about two sides. Seeing more supports also helps CF because the CF supports are so good, you have so many that are about how to build the world after the war and I love it. A lot of Fire Emblems seem to think that if you just defeat the Bad Guys the world will be happy, when what comes after is actually the hard part.

Meanwhile my opinion of VW has dropped a bit because I feel like it really doesn't know what it wants to be about (lore I guess, but I don't really care about that) and while I like Claude a lot, I dislike that his route isn't really about him and his goals, and in fact the last maps are kind of at odds with what he stands for. It's still well above SS because I hate SS, but that hasn't changed.


On story: I hated the Agarthians from day 1 but the more I think about it the more they're even worse than I thought. In a game which generally is quite impressive about understanding that conflicts occur for genuine reasons, they're comically evil, and in a game which seeks to say things about race relations, their portrayal as a race so vile that they "deserve" to be wiped out (and the fans have embraced this, often claiming certain endings are "better" if we kill more of them!) leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. They're absolutely the biggest blight on an otherwise well-written game.

That said my general opinion of the overall story remains extremely high. Yes, there are some poorly-explained bits and you can question the pacing of White Clouds. But the main story, i.e. the ideological conflict between the major story players and the open question as to who is right remains great and, if I'm being honest, puts the rest of the series to shame.


On characters: Still my favourite cast of any video game ever. The characters I loved from my first playthroughs (all three lords + Dorothea, Hubert) I still love. For changes... Ferdinand grew on me as the game went on and as I saw more and more of his supports and realized he definitely isn't the dope he first appeared to be. Mercedes as well; her VA was a bit offputting for me and her good attributes (her subtle snark and desire to bring out the best in others) weren't obvious at first glance. A couple characters did go the other way for me but not by huge amounts.


On the gameplay: While I still consider it a notable step back from Fates, I have warmed on it a bit. Maddening was a good addition, since I definitely felt Hard was too easy, even if some design choices remaing imperfect. Divine Pulse is a mechanic that I appreciate more on reflection, even though I think we get too many shots of it. The class system is fun to play around with, and has only gotten moreso as I learned my way around it better. I kinda sympathise with people's comments on the monastery feeling like a bit of a drag, but after beating the game doing hardly any of it and realizing it doesn't make things THAT much tougher, I felt a bit better, and I always like to emphasize to people who feel this way about the monastery: if you don't like it, don't do it. Or figure out what the most important things are for you and just do those. Otherwise, it's less important than you think.

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Well, a year later, I still believe that Four Houses is not even a strategy game, but a turn-based JRPG. Which may be a problem exclusive to me, of course.

Since I have basically nothing positive to say about game, there is no point repeating it all. What I can tell you is that my opinions (expectations, more exactly) did change before its release and shortly afterwards.

I still remember how excited I was when I watched the first trailer; I was at the office, stopped everything that I was doing and watched it in awe. I told my assistant about it, even though she could not care less. I shared it with my siblings, who did not even know what Fire Emblem was. I loved the musical arrangement used on the trailer and searched for covers on YouTube for weeks. That trailer was one of the reasons why I bought a Switch, despite its remaining boxed over half a year, for I only play games casually. But I did not want to miss the chance to play that game.

Months later, when new footage and information showed up, my opinion started to change. I did not like the aesthetics nor the emphasis on the school, but did not want to face the situation then. Instead, I decided not to read more information about the game until its release, here or elsewhere. I still liked what I had seen on that first trailer, and no leak would ruin it for me.

The day I got the game and started playing it... God, it was a disaster. I had clearly got a wrong, a very, very wrong idea of the game. And I faced it too late.
It does not even matter what I disliked, it is this shattered expectation that I wanted to tell you about.

Edited by starburst
Hapi's voice acting and dialogue drew a smile on me. That is one positive thing that I can say about Four Houses.
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2 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

As long as 3H's gameplay doesn't become the standard for the rest of the series, I'm fine with it. Easily the worst DLC model for a FE game though.

I imagine it will be if Koei-Tecmo has any say in it which I think they just may. I do wish they focus on map objectives/variety and on Strategy instead of the JRPG elements we got instead.

I know the developers are trying to get more casual players onboard but was there such a need to put in so many time fillers between the strategy? 

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11 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:


On story: I hated the Agarthians from day 1 but the more I think about it the more they're even worse than I thought. In a game which generally is quite impressive about understanding that conflicts occur for genuine reasons, they're comically evil, and in a game which seeks to say things about race relations, their portrayal as a race so vile that they "deserve" to be wiped out (and the fans have embraced this, often claiming certain endings are "better" if we kill more of them!) leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. They're absolutely the biggest blight on an otherwise well-written game.

I'm rather confused about their inclusion. You'd think that after the almost unanimous rejection of team Garon they would not have made a villain faction that's exactly like them. 

Of the bunch I've soured most on Solon. He's easily the worst of the bunch if you put any thought in him. Thales and Kronya are terrible too but they at least have a basic role to play and do so reasonably well. But nothing Solon does ever made much sense. He's behind Flayne's kidnapping to use her blood but the Slitherers never end up using her blood. He's then exposed by testing an insanity drug on a village and again this plot of Solon is never brought up again. And then he fails to banish Byleth and just dies. Thales, Kronya and Cornelia all have their roles to play but nothing Solon says or does serves any real purpose to the story aside from banishing Byleth for about two seconds. Even the banishment spell could just as well been given to Thales. 

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12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

On story: I hated the Agarthians from day 1 but the more I think about it the more they're even worse than I thought. In a game which generally is quite impressive about understanding that conflicts occur for genuine reasons, they're comically evil, and in a game which seeks to say things about race relations, their portrayal as a race so vile that they "deserve" to be wiped out (and the fans have embraced this, often claiming certain endings are "better" if we kill more of them!) leaves a very sour taste in my mouth. They're absolutely the biggest blight on an otherwise well-written game.

I think they should have been a groups of religious zealots that did everything possible to keep the crest system in tact.

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On 7/28/2020 at 12:09 PM, whase said:

I'm actually surprised about the amount of negativity in this thread. Not saying people who didn't like it shouldn't be saying so or whatever, but I'm just surprised. The game has been very well received by most of my friends and myself, despite, it's true, its obvious flaws.

While reading through this thread I am far more surprised to see how lenient people seem to be when it comes to the “strategic/tactical” aspect of Fire Emblem which I do consider to be the most important part of FE. I´m amazed by how games such as TH or to name an even worse offender, Echoes seem to get a free pass on what the actual game is because the storytelling and/or presentation are apparently so good – the characters, perhaps the story etc. all of which looks to me like additional and mostly useless fluff.

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5 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

While reading through this thread I am far more surprised to see how lenient people seem to be when it comes to the “strategic/tactical” aspect of Fire Emblem which I do consider to be the most important part of FE. I´m amazed by how games such as TH or to name an even worse offender, Echoes seem to get a free pass on what the actual game is because the storytelling and/or presentation are apparently so good – the characters, perhaps the story etc. all of which looks to me like additional and mostly useless fluff.

"Mostly useless fluff" huh? That's the harshest words I've ever heard on storytelling. XD

For me, all three are important. (strategy, storytelling and characters.) But through the 3 most recent games I have learnt that the characters are what brings me back to FE. Fates had pretty amazing gameplay, but the characters and story were worthless in my eyes, which is why it's my least replayed FE game. Echoes has amazing characters, but story and strategy were both a letdown. With the characters still being strong, I've replayed it about a dozen times. Three Houses has amazing characters, and both story and gameplay are acceptable in my eyes (maybe because I'm not as smart as the average SF-dweller, I actually do need to strategise in this game).

Different people like different stuff, and I'm actually glad FE has become more inclusive lately. Even if it has also led to games I enjoyed less like Awakening and Fates.

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52 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

While reading through this thread I am far more surprised to see how lenient people seem to be when it comes to the “strategic/tactical” aspect of Fire Emblem which I do consider to be the most important part of FE. I´m amazed by how games such as TH or to name an even worse offender, Echoes seem to get a free pass on what the actual game is because the storytelling and/or presentation are apparently so good – the characters, perhaps the story etc. all of which looks to me like additional and mostly useless fluff.

i'm with you and i strongly share your feeling (although i give Echoes a pass since it's a remake of a very old and different game)
what i need from FE is its intriguing gameplay: if i were to play FE games for their casts of characters or their stories, i might as well go and play literally any other JRPG series

so what other reason do i have to keep playing FE games, when their gameplay and difficulty are taken from them? well... force of habit maybe, but imo that's not a sufficient reason to justify me sticking with the series

this is why 3H might actually be my last FE, actually

Edited by Yexin
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3 hours ago, whase said:

For me, all three are important. (strategy, storytelling and characters.) But through the 3 most recent games I have learnt that the characters are what brings me back to FE [...]

Different people like different stuff, and I'm actually glad FE has become more inclusive lately.

He might be talking about how Four Houses earned "Strategy Game of the Year". 😂
At least I find it odd that such a game had won or been nominated to this award, however good Four Houses may be as a game in general. Remember when "The Martian" earned "Best Musical or Comedy"? Oh, well.

Edited by starburst
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6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Of the bunch I've soured most on Solon. He's easily the worst of the bunch if you put any thought in him. Thales and Kronya are terrible too but they at least have a basic role to play and do so reasonably well. But nothing Solon does ever made much sense. He's behind Flayne's kidnapping to use her blood but the Slitherers never end up using her blood. He's then exposed by testing an insanity drug on a village and again this plot of Solon is never brought up again. And then he fails to banish Byleth and just dies. Thales, Kronya and Cornelia all have their roles to play but nothing Solon says or does serves any real purpose to the story aside from banishing Byleth for about two seconds. Even the banishment spell could just as well been given to Thales. 

IMO that's more of an issue of how the story loves to deal with the molemen's shenanigans in the most indirect and implied way possible, as the game throws hints here and there  -while never spelling it out outright- that Flayn's blood was used for the artificial crest stones and to drive people crazy in Remire Village. Same goes for whatever handicap the Javelins of Light have and in hindsight it also extends to some of Edelgard & Rhea's actions (though after recent interviews & DLC it's hard to say if it was deliberate in their case).

Edited by Moltz23
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9 minutes ago, Moltz23 said:

IMO that's more of an issue of how the story loves to deal with the molemen's shenanigans in the most indirect and implied way possible, as the game throws hints here and there  -while never spelling it out outright- that Flayn's blood was used for the artificial crest stones and to drive people crazy in Remire Village. Same goes for whatever handicap the Javelins of Light have and in hindsight it also extends to some of Edelgard & Rhea's actions (though after recent interviews & DLC it's hard to say if it was deliberate in their case).

It's similar to the case of how take the whole prologue thing with the bandits at face value. They go about how Kostas saying that he was told to try and kill nobles and declare that Edelgard was trying to kill Dimitri and Claude. 

But then when you talk to people in Chapter 1, there's a lot of indication that that might not have been the case at all.

The game never bothers to actually go into explaining every bit of what is happening, but is implying that there's more to things than meets the eye.

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18 hours ago, starburst said:

He might be talking about how Four Houses earned "Strategy Game of the Year". 😂
At least I find it odd that such a game had won or been nominated to this award, however good Four Houses may be as a game in general. Remember when "The Martian" earned "Best Musical or Comedy"? Oh, well.

People who don't play a lot of strategy games(which is most, niche genre and stuff) don't have the same expectations as us hardcore fans. Awakening made that all too clear.

Also, that's precisely the thing. The award wasn't "which of these strategy games is the most strategic", but rather "which is the best overall between the games that roughly fit the criteria".

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2 hours ago, Cysx said:

People who don't play a lot of strategy games(which is most, niche genre and stuff) don't have the same expectations as us hardcore fans. Awakening made that all too clear.

Also, that's precisely the thing. The award wasn't "which of these strategy games is the most strategic", but rather "which is the best overall between the games that roughly fit the criteria".

Suuuuure, "Total War: Three Kingdoms", "Anno 1800", and "Age of Wonders: Planetfall" all roughly fit the criteria of strategy. And "Four Houses" just happens to blend in perfectly with them. 🙃
There is nothing hardcore about it, "Wargroove" was also nominated. "Four Houses" may not be the most strategic, but it was undoubtedly the most popular of the nominees.

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5 hours ago, starburst said:

Suuuuure, "Total War: Three Kingdoms", "Anno 1800", and "Age of Wonders: Planetfall" all roughly fit the criteria of strategy. And "Four Houses" just happens to blend in perfectly with them. 🙃
There is nothing hardcore about it, "Wargroove" was also nominated. "Four Houses" may not be the most strategic, but it was undoubtedly the most popular of the nominees.

We may have a tough time having a civilized discussion as people if you're just gonna diss 3H and Wargroove in the same breath.
... but seriously, you're kinda being rude.

Regardless, that was my point. We are hardcore(which is just one word among others I could have used, I'm not trying to say we're special, just very experienced and dedicated), the panel likely isn't, not when it comes to strategy games at the very least.

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1 hour ago, Cysx said:

We may have a tough time having a civilized discussion as people if you're just gonna diss 3H and Wargroove in the same breath [...]

Regardless, that was my point. We are hardcore, [...] the panel likely isn't, not when it comes to strategy games at the very least.

Then I did not express myself right: I would be glad if Wargroove had earned the award, it is undoubtedly a strategy game. It would have been great if a game inspired by Advance Wars had defeated the latest Intelligent Systems’s blockbuster.
I named it in a new sentence precisely because of how different it is when compared to the other nominees, and yet as strategic.

Anyway, I prefer any mission of Advance Wars 2 over any map of Four Houses. It has nothing to do with how traditional or serious a game is; strategy is strategy.

I will stop here. No worries.

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For me, the biggest change has been my appreciation of the story and world-building. I started out thinking it was servicable enough but nothing more than that, but have grown to appreciate it a lot over the past year. I appreciate a lot of the literary and mythological allusions now that I didn't know about when I first played, and I really enjoy them, especially how deeply the lore around Sothis echoes the Ancient Egyptian character of the same name. I also think that there's a lot of interesting story elements that are only really apparent on second and subsequent plays through the game. I really liked comparing themes, arcs and characerisations across different routes (eg, the many similarities between Rhea and Edelgard), and I like how we are told completely different things in different routes, and it's presented as fact in both of them. Having to question everything and really engage with the lore and still not be able to know any sort of objective truth is something that I really liked.

Of course, the downside to this is that it does take multiple plays to get the most out of the story. Given how long the game is and how much content is repeaed across routes, I think there's a big downside to that sort of storytelling. It worked well for me because there was enough that I liked about the game that I had motivation to play it multiple times, but if I'd quit after my first run, I'd have been left with a much worse impression of the story. I don't tend to value replayability all that highly in games -- I'm completely happy with a game I play once, have a lot of fun with, and then never touch again -- so it doesn't bother me much that some of the monastery activities and reused maps don't stand up well to repeated play. It does become much more of an issue when replay is baked into the design and required to see the full story.

In short: I liked how they did storytelling across multiple routes, disliked how they did gameplay across multiple routes, and am generally hoping that next game has only a single route.

Beyond all that, I think my opinion is largely the same now as it was a year ago. Some stuff I like, some stuff I don't like, a few characters I like a little bit more or a little bit less, some stuff that worked well for me but which I understand why other people dislike, but few big changes. I think it helps that I didn't pay much attention to pre-launch hype, so my initial experience of the game wasn't really coloured by any weight of expectation.

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I loved it when I first played it. Verdant Wind was my first playthrough and I played Azure Moon right after. Both were fantastic to me (Verdant Wind mostly cuz it was my first exposure to the story, I think Azure Moon is a better route overall) 

Great story

Fantastic Cast

Fantastic Music

Well writren dialogue and incredible voice acting production

Some of the most immersive and customizable gameplay I ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

 

How I think of it now?

 

About the same but its flaws are things I would like to see improved upon in the next game.

The two major problems are its map and graphics.

 

Please dont rush the game next time. The graphics and animations could have been SO much better. I wish there was more exclusive animations for individual characters and that the supports werent just characters pasted over 2 mannequins talking to eachother who do the exact same animations for practically everyone. The battle animations were yucky. Something about the 3ds games (tho low res) had some kind of pizzazz amd style to them. The attacks felt more expressive and you actually felt the impact of the crits. Something about it was just satisfying. Here, not so much....

Also give me a game like Three Houses but with maps like Conquest and it will be incredible. The gameplay was amazing but imagine its potential if the maps were actually great. Gambits were really thought out and made for a really fun mechanic, epsecially for demomic beasts. Micro managing every combat arts, abilities, class skills, gambits made for an amazing experience, but imagine the potenial it would have been if the maps were as fun and well thought out as its other gameplay mechanics.

Also wish Claude was more fleshed out. He was such an interesting character but it really felt like he was an afterthought for the main two lord rivalry. They hyped up his schemes and mischevious behavior so much that I was left a little unsatisfied when he didnt really leave any major impact on the storyline. He was kind of just a typical FE lord, masked behind a charismatic and smooth personality. But he basically had your typical generic FE lord lines just with a little more flair added to them....

I still love him to death tho, just wanted more from him!!

 

Other than that  probably my fave in the series alongside Path of Radiance and Blazing Blade

 

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I’ve come to consider it my favorite, but mostly for the characters and the stories surrounding them.

I’d say that if the next FE were more ambitious than this, I’d be a bit worried. Well, if I realized that much.

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The more I play the game, the more apparent the flaws are and I feel the con completely overshadows the pros. Most of my issue lies within the Monastery phase as it feels like a fancy My Castle from Fates but more tedious and barely any more substance. 

The strategy aspect is decent but not great. It’s sad when I find that XC2 sometimes feel more strategic (deciding which blades to use so that they synergize with each other well) than TH because I can literally make anyone into any class (ie. Mage Hilda, Armoured Knight Marianne) and still have them be pretty good in these roles. 

I think TH is a good game but not as amazing as people claims it to be. I also really hope that TH doesn’t shape the way for future FE titles. 

Edited by zuibangde
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Lol, I've certainly gained a higher opinion of the game than when I first played it. Went from a mid tier FE game to near the top. I don't think it's as good as Radiant Dawn, Awakening, or Sacred Stones. I would perhaps put it directly after those three. Due to some issues I have with some of the older games I think it pulls ahead of those a bit. If Genealogy of the Holy War had a remake it'd definitely rank as a top tier game. Anyway, there are still some things I can't get past when it comes to 3H like different routes and no post game. However, I'm glad they didn't split the game up like Fates did. Implementing NG+ was smart, but still should've had postgame. They would've been able to expand far more with DLC if they had. Calendar system and the amount of focus the game has on the Monastery (even though there's a lack of what you can do) still bothers me. But I've become more accepting of it as I realize it probably won't ever reappear again, which is good. When playing FE for so long (and I've played all the games) there are certain expectations you have in FE game, because you know what you want and like. When those don't show up, it can be disappointing. I've lightened up to the game quite a bit and have accepted it for what it is. I think it has some strong stories and very strong characters. These could be the best written characters all round in any FE game.

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Not really. Still the best Fire Emblem game I’ve played since Radiant Dawn. Not exactly a favorite of mine but it is still out there among the top 5 in the series. Does have some downsides to it, which I’m not gonna bother repeating what’s already been said in here. 

What I absolutely love the most about the game is the characters, which are the best well written and perhaps the most memorable of any FE game. About 75-80% of the cast in other games I don’t even care about.

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