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Change 3 things about Three Houses (and one thing about Cindered Shadows)


Jotari
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9 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

You can be a heterosexual woman and not want kids for those reasons. She can definitely say as much and still have an S support with men, because marriage doesn't have to mean baby making. Especially since the game ends before the S support and this isn't FE4. If you want Edelgard to be a lesbian, just make her one. You don't need some grand in-universe explanation. I like to think we're past the point of believing that lesbians are just a bunch of men haters that religiously reject the stereotypes and gender norms of the female experience.

It's not a case of needing some grand in-universe explanation and more just something I'd find thematically appropriate. And I'm not talking about changing her character so this is some big aspect she talks about constantly, I'm literally just saying remove her S supports with male characters (except maybe a platonic one with Hubert) and add a few more with females.

9 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

1. I'd redesign the monistary to work more like how my castle worked in fates. I honestly found the monistary to be the worst part of the game since it takes so long to actually get from place to place and use up your free time. Having a 2D map would make it a faster part of the game.

2. I would have an option to turn off voices for support conversations since I can read much faster than I can listen.

3. I'd rework the cutscene to have actual backgrounds instead of whatever they did

I haven't gotten any of the DLC so I can't say anything about it 

You know you can fast travel using the monastery, right?

8 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

 

 

Wouldn't that actually take away from her statements about not letting a child of hers succeed her by birthright? If she's not going to have kids anyway, then it's not a big statement; her statement that she isn't going to pick an offspring as a successor because of her ideology is made more impactful by the fact that she could end up having kids than if she's not going to anyway. The English Royal Family deciding now, when the immediate line of succession is all guys, to switch from prioritizing male heirs to absolute primogeniture (firstborn regardless of gender) took away any impact it could've had either in practical terms or as a statement. 

Plus, Edelgard isn't exactly bi; her only all-female paired ending that's explicitly romantic is with F!Byleth; the others are platonic. 

I guess you could view it that way, but I'd see it the opposite. Especially since it's not a story that continues into an era with a second generation (thankfully!). If it were then that could be seen as a powerful choice, but if she's gay throughout then it's an implicit reality of her character.

Though personally I think the UK not changing over to absolute primogeniture earlier is downright shameful. They should have organized that at least back in the eighties when Thatcher was running around.

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1. Change final boss of SS to Nemesis. Fighting Rhea on this route makes no sense and her 'dragon illness' comes out of nowhere. Having Rhea playable on this route would work too considering if Nemesis wanted to fight anyone, it would be Rhea (also SS is in desperate need of a lord to follow)

2. Change VW so that it is Claude's route and not SS 2.0 feat the Golden Deer. Explore the inner turmoil of Leicester and show Claude actually trying to break down walls between Almyra and Fodlan (also you could throw in his real name Khalid somewhere too).

3. In general have the lords interact more both pre and post skip and give TWSITD more presence. Both of the lords suffer from lack of sympathy from players unless you've played their routes cause they are s flat in other routes. I don't understand why in SS we couldn't have seen Dimitri and Claude after the Myrddin battle asking for assistance at Gronder. TWSITD are just boring in general. I think having them be more morally grey rather than so blatantly evil and acting as the number ?? Fe dark cult trying to resurrect some ancient evil.

CS - Have Jeralt be playable. The route is about him after all and he is in desperate need of more character cause he's fairly flat in the main game.

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For things to change in the main game, I recently read a reddit post about modifying part of AM war phase which I find very intriguing. The whole post can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/j0tt1q/how_i_would_improve_edelgard_as_an_antagonist_in/ What I personally love are the changes concerning Gronder and Arianrhod paralogue.

For Gronder in AM, I like the idea of a fog of war situation to better explain Claude’s attack on Kingdom force. Either with the smoke from the burning ballista or a magic fog a la Chapter 3 like the author suggested. Additionally, Claude’s ambition and opportunism can also be used here, wanting to take advantage after Empire and Kingdom duking it out.

I also like the idea to frame Gronder as an overall defeat in AM, in the sense that the Empire army that they defeat in the map are only the vanguard, with a following cutscene saying that they’re forced to retreat when the reserve troops arrive. I think it’s more thematically fitting in AM, with many characters emphasising Gronder is a suicide charge before the mission.

For Arianrhod paralogue, the author suggested changing it into a main mission after Firhdiad, and instead of Dimitri wanting to liberate it himself, he was to answer a call for help there. In reality, it was a trap to lure him there with the cooperation from western Kingdom nobles, and he has to make tactical retreat instead of pressing forward to deal with the betrayal. The author argued that this could show Dimitri’s personal growth in a more concrete way and Edelgard’s cunning side, as well as provide a potential point of view from territories occupied by Empire for the debate scene later on, which I very much agree. I also quite like the idea that this mission could play like a reverse of Petra & Bernadetta paralogue, with the initial objective being routing the enemy, then after reaching a certain point, the true objective would be revealed as reaching a certain escape point. To make it more threatening, the floor traps can be initially inactive, then activated after the true objective reveal, and there can be some very strong but very slow-moving enemy reinforcements like CS Chapter 4 that make escaping more favourable than defeating them.

For DLC, I’d like a Yuri/Ash support that can provide some insight during the period when Yuri was adopted by house Rowe. Yuri had several identities before the beginning of the game, all while being an adolescent. While this game has all sorts of teenagers with superhuman qualities, I believe that fleshing his complicated background with more details can help ground his character even more.

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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

I guess you could view it that way, but I'd see it the opposite. Especially since it's not a story that continues into an era with a second generation (thankfully!). If it were then that could be seen as a powerful choice, but if she's gay throughout then it's an implicit reality of her character.

I see. 

 

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Though personally I think the UK not changing over to absolute primogeniture earlier is downright shameful. They should have organized that at least back in the eighties when Thatcher was running around.

Yes, that was part of my point; them playing it safe by only choosing now of all times to switch is completely pathetic and about as impactful as a piece of paper falling on someone's head.

Edited by vanguard333
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2 hours ago, Azz said:

1. Change final boss of SS to Nemesis. Fighting Rhea on this route makes no sense and her 'dragon illness' comes out of nowhere. Having Rhea playable on this route would work too considering if Nemesis wanted to fight anyone, it would be Rhea (also SS is in desperate need of a lord to follow)

2. Change VW so that it is Claude's route and not SS 2.0 feat the Golden Deer. Explore the inner turmoil of Leicester and show Claude actually trying to break down walls between Almyra and Fodlan (also you could throw in his real name Khalid somewhere too).

3. In general have the lords interact more both pre and post skip and give TWSITD more presence. Both of the lords suffer from lack of sympathy from players unless you've played their routes cause they are s flat in other routes. I don't understand why in SS we couldn't have seen Dimitri and Claude after the Myrddin battle asking for assistance at Gronder. TWSITD are just boring in general. I think having them be more morally grey rather than so blatantly evil and acting as the number ?? Fe dark cult trying to resurrect some ancient evil.

CS - Have Jeralt be playable. The route is about him after all and he is in desperate need of more character cause he's fairly flat in the main game.

I'd adore more morally grey Agarthans. Especially if their whole schtick was an intention to mechanize Fodlan and bring it into a more modern age which is actively being suppressed by Rhea. There's some foundation for that in the game, but it's basically flavor text rather than being anything of substance.

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31 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I see. 

 

Yes, that was part of my point; them playing it safe by only choosing now of all times to switch is completely pathetic and about as impactful as a piece of paper falling on someone's head.

I more meant that I don't think waiting longer until it's actually relevant just to make a statement out of it would be any better.

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22 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I more meant that I don't think waiting longer until it's actually relevant just to make a statement out of it would be any better.

I know that's what you meant. I'm just trying to clarify that don't think that either; I too was saying it should've happened sooner at a point when it would've been relevant. 

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I know that's what you meant. I'm just trying to clarify that don't think that either; I too was saying it should've happened sooner at a point when it would've been relevant. 

Last time it would have been relevant predates women even getting the vote. So I wouldn't really have expected if from that era. Though fun fact, if the most recent time it was relevant had come to pass, then Kaizer Wilhelm would have been the King of Britain during World War I (though in that reality the chances of them marrying off the heir apparent to a foreign power would be unlikely in such a universe).

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I'm going to attempt to limit myself to "easy" changes here.  Note that even some simple changes would have been a decent amount of work for IntSys: For example, gender-locked classes suck, but they also cut in half the number of models they have to render.  Un-gender-locking them would involve creating a bunch of new models and making sure they have the right animations for taking damage, using a special attack, using all their weapon types, etc.  On the other hand, changing base stats or growths would take an hour, or updating dialogue slightly would take a day (translations + maybe throw a mustache on some existing generic portrait if you need a new character).

1. People have whined about TWSITD already.  I think they're too ingrained into the game to be removed entirely, but two small fixes that I think would help: A) include at least one "sympathetic" Slitherer who can give their side of the story, and B) Include some reason, any reason, for the Slitherers to want to kill Jeralt specifically (rather than part of a general we-hate-the-Church movement, since Jeralt was hardly the most loyal Church employee to target - something Tomas could certainly have told them!).  As others have noted, the Agarthans are still clearly "people"; the modern Agarthans might have insane leadership, but that shouldn't necessarily imply it's okay to murder them all.  There's a lot of places this can go that veer into fanfic / fix fic territory, but the above two are comparatively lightweight patches - a sympathetic Agarthan offers hope for a better future (even if they get like 4 lines total), and a reason to target Jeralt would better focus the personal Byleth vs. Slitherers feud which is a bit arbitrary and unfulfilling in the current game.

2. Silver Snow needs some love.  Just do something different from it than Verdant Wind, anything.  Others have mentioned the possible final boss swap.  One other proposal that doesn't even involve making any new maps, just adjusting the level scaling on existing maps: Rhea gets transported to the care of the Slitherers for Unethical Medical Experiments halfway through the timeskip.  Either Shamir's spy network finds out, or Hubert just outright leaks the transfer to Our Heroes.  Then do the Shambala mission way sooner than Verdant Wind does - say during the Gronder 2 month as a replacement for it, with the enemy levels scaled down appropriately.  We rescue a wounded Rhea, but she's already been experimented on by the bad guys (which will make her later madness be less of an out-of-nowhere thing).  We also steal the Secret Agarthan Missile Base for ourselves.  When missiles fire at Ft. Merceus, that's a crazed Rhea trusting that her chosen will be fine and that all the Imperials deserve to die horribly, and the Death Knight "saving" us both (don't even have to change the cutscene).  Maybe even skip Enbarr 1 and have Rhea just fire missiles at the capital as an intimidation thing, burying Hubert in the rubble and causing the army to flee, going straight to the palace.  Then let Rhea join up for that mission where she can do her best Dimitri Kill Every Last One Of Them impression.  That way when you're fighting Rhea on the Church Route, this all makes sense that she's lost control of herself.  (If we want to spend a little more effort, then do a Gronder 2 + Talitean Fields VW Final mix-up where Claude leads a ragtag alliance of Imperial survivors, Alliance members, Almyrans, Slitherers, and Kingdom people mad about the Church abandoning Dimitri  against the crazed missile-armed new Archbishop that blew up Enbarr, which you've now received the blame for..   Since we'll say Gronder 2 was just Kingdom vs. Empire with no Alliance.  But don't even need that, since this would be a "new" mission..)

3. Create some sort of randomizer mode that completely cuts the Monastery.  You can set Goals for characters and they gain massively inflated XP compared to passive weekly training (to compensate for no tutoring), but that's it.  No plot, just take existing maps (including Paralogues) in a random order and rescale the levels as appropriate.  As a result, allow the rando to hand out characters you wouldn't normally get - Cornelia, Rhea, Acheron, multiple Lords on the same team, etc.  This sounds like it'd be a lot of work and go against what I described above, but I actually don't think it would be that much work at all.  No new artwork, no new modelling, no fundamental system change aside from putting in a 4x multiplier next to the monthly training on skills and assuming a big Skip each month.  Since Casual mode exists, the game already supports characters-not-on-the-map talking (if they were defeated earlier), so it wouldn't even require serious retrofit of any/most of the maps churned out.  I think this would really help the long-term appeal of the game for players who like the gameplay but already know all the plot.

 

CS: This will be a bit vague, but add in another new character.  If a player has even the barest amount of plot sense, they'll know Aelfric must be the bad guy, because he's literally the only option: 4 playable PCs + one mysterious NPC = the NPC is the villain, since it's not like Death Knight or Metodey will turn out to be the Real Threat off their cameos.  Throw in another disgraced Bishop, have one of the Abyss shopkeepers actually be a spy, have another old acquaintance of Yuri show up, I dunno.  The general point is, there's more possibilities to spice things up with a slightly wider cast, while it's extremely predictable with 4+1.

Bonus suggested update: Well this obviously didn't happen, presumably because they didn't want to record the lines for the VAs (and thus be a high-effort change), but Anna should have had at least a few supports.  Especially with Ignatz!

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28 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

Bonus suggested update: Well this obviously didn't happen, presumably because they didn't want to record the lines for the VAs (and thus be a high-effort change), but Anna should have had at least a few supports.  Especially with Ignatz!

Anna not having supports was a horribly lazy move. I can definitely see a few clearly working. You already mentioned Ignatz (shared merchant background) - in theory, this could justify one with Raphael, too. Sylvain not at least hitting on her (C-B) seems a major oversight - she cute, after all. A support chain with Hanneman could shed more light on her Crest, the least-understood one in the game. And one with Alois or Gilbert, each a married man, could bring up her relationship with Jake (let him exist, dammit!). Finally, Anna could bond with Dorothea over their distaste for actually fighting, while encouraging her to make her own fortune, rather than seeking out a "sugar daddy".

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4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

CS: This will be a bit vague, but add in another new character.  If a player has even the barest amount of plot sense, they'll know Aelfric must be the bad guy, because he's literally the only option: 4 playable PCs + one mysterious NPC = the NPC is the villain, since it's not like Death Knight or Metodey will turn out to be the Real Threat off their cameos.  Throw in another disgraced Bishop, have one of the Abyss shopkeepers actually be a spy, have another old acquaintance of Yuri show up, I dunno.  The general point is, there's more possibilities to spice things up with a slightly wider cast, while it's extremely predictable with 4+1.

This is actually so true. And when I think back and consider it, they actually did a pretty decent job of building Aelfric up as a good guy. The alarm bells just range too loudly with "This guy is too good to be real" for it to make a difference. If there was at least one other red herring (though I wouldn't object to more than just one other character) then it actually could have been a pretty decent plot twist.

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4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I'm going to attempt to limit myself to "easy" changes here.  Note that even some simple changes would have been a decent amount of work for IntSys: For example, gender-locked classes suck, but they also cut in half the number of models they have to render.  Un-gender-locking them would involve creating a bunch of new models and making sure they have the right animations for taking damage, using a special attack, using all their weapon types, etc.  On the other hand, changing base stats or growths would take an hour, or updating dialogue slightly would take a day (translations + maybe throw a mustache on some existing generic portrait if you need a new character).

1. People have whined about TWSITD already.  I think they're too ingrained into the game to be removed entirely, but two small fixes that I think would help: A) include at least one "sympathetic" Slitherer who can give their side of the story, and B) Include some reason, any reason, for the Slitherers to want to kill Jeralt specifically (rather than part of a general we-hate-the-Church movement, since Jeralt was hardly the most loyal Church employee to target - something Tomas could certainly have told them!).  As others have noted, the Agarthans are still clearly "people"; the modern Agarthans might have insane leadership, but that shouldn't necessarily imply it's okay to murder them all.  There's a lot of places this can go that veer into fanfic / fix fic territory, but the above two are comparatively lightweight patches - a sympathetic Agarthan offers hope for a better future (even if they get like 4 lines total), and a reason to target Jeralt would better focus the personal Byleth vs. Slitherers feud which is a bit arbitrary and unfulfilling in the current game.

2. Silver Snow needs some love.  Just do something different from it than Verdant Wind, anything.  Others have mentioned the possible final boss swap.  One other proposal that doesn't even involve making any new maps, just adjusting the level scaling on existing maps: Rhea gets transported to the care of the Slitherers for Unethical Medical Experiments halfway through the timeskip.  Either Shamir's spy network finds out, or Hubert just outright leaks the transfer to Our Heroes.  Then do the Shambala mission way sooner than Verdant Wind does - say during the Gronder 2 month as a replacement for it, with the enemy levels scaled down appropriately.  We rescue a wounded Rhea, but she's already been experimented on by the bad guys (which will make her later madness be less of an out-of-nowhere thing).  We also steal the Secret Agarthan Missile Base for ourselves.  When missiles fire at Ft. Merceus, that's a crazed Rhea trusting that her chosen will be fine and that all the Imperials deserve to die horribly, and the Death Knight "saving" us both (don't even have to change the cutscene).  Maybe even skip Enbarr 1 and have Rhea just fire missiles at the capital as an intimidation thing, burying Hubert in the rubble and causing the army to flee, going straight to the palace.  Then let Rhea join up for that mission where she can do her best Dimitri Kill Every Last One Of Them impression.  That way when you're fighting Rhea on the Church Route, this all makes sense that she's lost control of herself.  (If we want to spend a little more effort, then do a Gronder 2 + Talitean Fields VW Final mix-up where Claude leads a ragtag alliance of Imperial survivors, Alliance members, Almyrans, Slitherers, and Kingdom people mad about the Church abandoning Dimitri  against the crazed missile-armed new Archbishop that blew up Enbarr, which you've now received the blame for..   Since we'll say Gronder 2 was just Kingdom vs. Empire with no Alliance.  But don't even need that, since this would be a "new" mission..)

3. Create some sort of randomizer mode that completely cuts the Monastery.  You can set Goals for characters and they gain massively inflated XP compared to passive weekly training (to compensate for no tutoring), but that's it.  No plot, just take existing maps (including Paralogues) in a random order and rescale the levels as appropriate.  As a result, allow the rando to hand out characters you wouldn't normally get - Cornelia, Rhea, Acheron, multiple Lords on the same team, etc.  This sounds like it'd be a lot of work and go against what I described above, but I actually don't think it would be that much work at all.  No new artwork, no new modelling, no fundamental system change aside from putting in a 4x multiplier next to the monthly training on skills and assuming a big Skip each month.  Since Casual mode exists, the game already supports characters-not-on-the-map talking (if they were defeated earlier), so it wouldn't even require serious retrofit of any/most of the maps churned out.  I think this would really help the long-term appeal of the game for players who like the gameplay but already know all the plot.

 

CS: This will be a bit vague, but add in another new character.  If a player has even the barest amount of plot sense, they'll know Aelfric must be the bad guy, because he's literally the only option: 4 playable PCs + one mysterious NPC = the NPC is the villain, since it's not like Death Knight or Metodey will turn out to be the Real Threat off their cameos.  Throw in another disgraced Bishop, have one of the Abyss shopkeepers actually be a spy, have another old acquaintance of Yuri show up, I dunno.  The general point is, there's more possibilities to spice things up with a slightly wider cast, while it's extremely predictable with 4+1.

Bonus suggested update: Well this obviously didn't happen, presumably because they didn't want to record the lines for the VAs (and thus be a high-effort change), but Anna should have had at least a few supports.  Especially with Ignatz!

I agree fully I’ve done all routes and CS and the game play feels stale when you know the story since it feels like a grind on repeat play through after experience all 4 path. Even a student avatar would change things in the monastery since you not a faculty teacher interacting. The student could have a reputation level and a student level to determine your social standing in who you can Interact with and how people see ya thus replay value without feeling like a chore. The monastery is chore one your professor level and your weapon rank is maxed along with all support max, it becomes padding.       PS : we really need an update to this game since it’s been a year from an actual direct from Nintendo and to not let this game die feeling stale 

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These are just things I can think of right off top of my head. 

1. Make choices matter. I recall playing the BL route, and they're like do you want to go route A or B? I'm like lets go route B, and the game is like nope we're going route A. Why ask me then if my choice doesn't matter? I think it would've added more replay to it. 

2. Maybe give a little love to the route where you don't choose a side (I can't think of the name). Anywho, it's kind of a lazy route. 

3. Get rid of Byleth. I don't hate the character, but I would be ok if they just weren't in the game. I think the story and emotion of the game would be better if it was a struggle between three friends. Yes, I'm 100% aware that's what the game is, but I mean that same struggle without Byleth being there as the center piece. Maybe I'm not making sense, but I still think the game would've been better with no Byleth.

Um, for CS, I'm not sure? I only played it once. 

 

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On 10/20/2020 at 4:11 PM, SnowFire said:

CS: This will be a bit vague, but add in another new character.  If a player has even the barest amount of plot sense, they'll know Aelfric must be the bad guy, because he's literally the only option: 4 playable PCs + one mysterious NPC = the NPC is the villain, since it's not like Death Knight or Metodey will turn out to be the Real Threat off their cameos.  Throw in another disgraced Bishop, have one of the Abyss shopkeepers actually be a spy, have another old acquaintance of Yuri show up, I dunno.  The general point is, there's more possibilities to spice things up with a slightly wider cast, while it's extremely predictable with 4+1.

Ah, yes; what I call the Tobito predictability problem (after one of the main villains in Naruto): where the identity of the main villain is made obvious by the lack of anyone else it could feasibly be. 

16 hours ago, Guy Starwind said:

2. Maybe give a little love to the route where you don't choose a side (I can't think of the name). Anywho, it's kind of a lazy route.

There isn't a route where you don't pick a side; are you talking about the route where you side with the church?

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On 10/21/2020 at 2:31 PM, vanguard333 said:

There isn't a route where you don't pick a side; are you talking about the route where you side with the church?

Yeah, that must be it. Pretty much the one where you do don't choose on of the houses in part 2. 

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28 minutes ago, Guy Starwind said:

Yeah, that must be it. Pretty much the one where you do don't choose on of the houses in part 2. 

That would be the route where you side with the church over Edelgard. Yeah; that route could've used a bit more work. The weird thing is that apparently, at the conceptual level, Edelgard's route and the church route were created first, then Dimitri and Claude's routes were built around the church route. If that's true (and someone correct me if it isn't true), then that's a really weird way to design the routes in a game heavily marketed as being all about a three-way fight between three superpowers. 

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3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

That would be the route where you side with the church over Edelgard. Yeah; that route could've used a bit more work. The weird thing is that apparently, at the conceptual level, Edelgard's route and the church route were created first, then Dimitri and Claude's routes were built around the church route. If that's true (and someone correct me if it isn't true), then that's a really weird way to design the routes in a game heavily marketed as being all about a three-way fight between three superpowers. 

You assume the game was always meant to be (or even ended up being) a three way fight between three superpowers.

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9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You assume the game was always meant to be (or even ended up being) a three way fight between three superpowers.

Looking back at what I said, that's very true. I just meant that it was strange compared to how it ended up being marketed, as in the decision to market it that way when it was developed another way makes the whole thing seem strange. Does that make sense? I probably could've phrased it better.

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Looking back at what I said, that's very true. I just meant that it was strange compared to how it ended up being marketed, as in the decision to market it that way when it was developed another way makes the whole thing seem strange. Does that make sense? I probably could've phrased it better.

If only it were purely a marketing decision and not  a late development decision which forced them to hurriedly had to make four routes that are mostly identical, including an actual identical part 1 you're required to play through four times.

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Just now, Jotari said:

If only it were purely a marketing decision and not  a late development decision which forced them to hurriedly had to make four routes that are mostly identical, including an actual identical part 1 you're required to play through four times.

Yeah; I think the game definitely would've been better if built from the ground up to accommodate four routes (though probably just three routes since, if house vs house vs house had been the starting idea rather than empire vs church, it probably would've ended up being three routes) or at least if both ideas had been in mind from the get-go. Ambition has rarely been IS' friend when it comes to Fire Emblem, and this game was their most ambitious yet, so it definitely needed a solid plan and to just stick to that plan. 

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Three Houses:

1. Shared route between all three classes, where you get to run a few different missions with each class and then you can choose which one to officially join at the midway point. This would help the flow of the story imo, and make choosing a faction meaningful.

2. Part Two needs massively cut monastery time, to improve the flow of the story. Pegasus blessings have hit the Elwind, this is no time to take a lethargic break every month! Part One can be a drag, but it is still mostly setup, teaching and growth. Having the same thing in Part Two probably hurt the game more than any other aspect.

3. Give Byleth some freaking dialogue. Byleth supposedly talks as much as Shamir, which isn't a whole lot, so why the flip aren't they voiced?!

 

Cindered Shadows:

Give me a different DLC, please. I strongly dislike the characters and story. There were so many other options that could have been explored (like Jeralt? Loog? Almyra?), but IS literally pulled something from the sewers and. I. Hated. It.

I did like the maps though.

Edited by Slyfox
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Three Houses:

1. Make Silver Snow and Verdant Wind unique routes.
-- I'm of the belief Silver Snow is a ripoff of Verdant Wind, so if I had to choose one to revamp, it would be Silver Snow. While I love my Black Eagle students, I wouldn't mind if transforming into a pure Church Route instead of being "Seteth's Adventure, featuring Byleth and the Black Eagles." Let all the Monastery members get the chance to shine, and give us a playable Rhea while they are at it. Heck, maybe the Black Eagle students actually go with Edelgard unless certain conditions are met, leaving the player with only recruited students from other houses and the Monastery characters. It would definitely increase the factor of having to slay your former prized pupils as well.
-- Edelgard's defeat cutscene makes little sense in Verdant Wind, so I would cut that. Also, they didn't really play up fighting against Edelgard in Silver Snow, it just happens. I wanted a heartbreaking moment when we slew Edelgard, and I didn't get it. AM doesn't count.

2. Expand Crimson Flower's storyline
-- While I love the Black Eagles and Edelgard, as well as their route, it desperately needs more chapters. Specifically, it needs to properly finish off TWSITD instead of having them dealt with off-screen. I understand Rhea thematically is an excellent end boss, but it would be more satisfying to see the Conquest Liberation of Fodlan all the way through. Adding another chapter for both the Blue Lions and Golden Deer conflicts would also be appreciated.

3. In Azure Moon, make Dimitri's recovery process more gradual, instead of being "instant."
-- Azure Moon is probably the best route and most developed, but my criticism come from Dimitri immediately "recovering" after a certain chapter. He goes from rampaging beast to a redeemed man relatively quickly, even if he is supposed to bear the burdens for the rest of his days. I understand that there are story points to be reached and a limited time to do so, but I would have liked if it was more of a struggle to heal and recovery instead of being rallied by the words and actions of the professor.

* * * * *

Cindered Shadows:
I wish it was a separate game mode and alternative timeline that acted like a combination of SoV's and SS's post-game where the player can play with all the characters in a sandbox setting. The story can even be expanded upon here, especially if Jeralt gets involved. Give me Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude in one army that is customizable!

Since this happens somewhere before the timeskip (and before the Byleths dye their hair), where's Sothis and Jeralt? There could have been so much more lore if they were included.
-- Otherwise, I was mostly satisfied with the DLC. It's just the shame I need to replay the game 4 more time again so I can see all the new dialogue from Abyss and its students...

* * * * *

As an aside, the greatest feature of Three Houses is also its greatest downfall, and it is the Monastery itself. Sure, it is nice to run around in and see what everyone has to say, but it gets dull real quick after repeated playthroughs. Tellius' Base Conversations did it best, although I wouldn't mind seeing a return to how SoV did things. The Monastery went overboard with the "My Castle" idea from Fates. I would prefer quality over quantity - a few good conversations is better than giving everyone a few lines that have various degrees of relevance.

Also, Three Houses could have definitely used more development time. Azure Moon (Blue Lions) is the most well developed route, especially when considering Part One has the strongest ties to AM. Crimson Flower (Black Eagles) was lovingly rushed, it has great stuff, but doesn't seem to have everything originally planned. Verdant Wind (Golden Deer) was all right, especially when it came to exploring the background lore of Fodlan and answering questions not covered in other routes, but the Nemesis fight came out of nowhere. Silver Snow got the short end of the stick being a copy of VW, and then there's a modified Rhea boss from CF in SS.
-- I would love to see a "Definitive Edition" of Three Houses in the future, in where most of the cut content is implemented properly. I don't think we ever saw the eastern side of the Monastery as that was always blocked off, and the DLC never addressed that area...

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35 minutes ago, Sire said:

2. Expand Crimson Flower's storyline
-- While I love the Black Eagles and Edelgard, as well as their route, it desperately needs more chapters. Specifically, it needs to properly finish off TWSITD instead of having them dealt with off-screen. I understand Rhea thematically is an excellent end boss, but it would be more satisfying to see the Conquest Liberation of Fodlan all the way through. Adding another chapter for both the Blue Lions and Golden Deer conflicts would also be appreciated.

 

They could have dealt with the Agarthans before dealing with Rhea to leave her as the end boss. I mean beyond that one Cordelia chapter. Crimson Flower leaves me incredulous that Edelgard even can defeat the Agarthans. They show themselves just as ready to take her on as she is to take them on, and they have far more crazier resources to deal with her. There's no great explanation as to why Enbarr doesn't become a smoking pile of ash the moment Rhea's dead. But if she betrayed them before killing Rhea then that would blindside the Agarthans completely. They don't want to kill her before she kills Rhea because she's meant to be their Rhea slaying weapon, but she has no reason to keep them alive once she's confident she has the resources to take Rhea down.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

They could have dealt with the Agarthans before dealing with Rhea to leave her as the end boss. I mean beyond that one Cordelia chapter. Crimson Flower leaves me incredulous that Edelgard even can defeat the Agarthans. They show themselves just as ready to take her on as she is to take them on, and they have far more crazier resources to deal with her. There's no great explanation as to why Enbarr doesn't become a smoking pile of ash the moment Rhea's dead. But if she betrayed them before killing Rhea then that would blindside the Agarthans completely. They don't want to kill her before she kills Rhea because she's meant to be their Rhea slaying weapon, but she has no reason to keep them alive once she's confident she has the resources to take Rhea down.

I borderline felt this way when I'd only seen AM and CF but after playing all the routes I absolutely buy that Edelgard would have taken out the Agarthans. We know that she and Hubert used the javelins of light to trace their base on VW/SS, so why not on CF as well? A sneak attack against their base would presumably remove their ability to fire them again, and set the stage for the spy war against them to come. It helps that Hubert appears to be just about the most knowledgeable person alive about the Agarthans (to the point where we even use his fanon name for them), so I feel a bit better about the prospects for defeating them on the one route he makes it out of alive.

I guess we could have had a Shambhala fight between Cornelia and Tailtean that shows this on-screen but I can't say I'm unhappy to not have that stupid map on a third route.

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