Dark Holy Elf

Wait, does he have Lance of Ruin as an enemy? I don't recall seeing that. If you mean as a PC, then Ingrid can do it too. Anyway Sylvain doesn't get any of the personal strength hype that Dimitri gets. Maybe if he put as much effort into training as Dimitri he'd be equal, but even then I doubt it. Still decently strong of course.

He's a bit part with a famous voice actor. I don't think anyone would care about him otherwise. (For me, hearing 9S giving me a cheerful report brings a smile to my face, but I'd never call myself a huge fan or even think of mentioning him in a list like this.)

I definitely agree with this. To make matters worse, when the characters aren't spouting their gimmick, they're often talking about how great you, the perfect main character, are, how they only won the last battle because of you, how they only get out of bed because of you, etc., etc. It's kinda cringey. Fortunately, these lines form only a tiny part of each character's characterization. Most characters have like 20 such lines in the game, tops... and around 500 from supports, which is where these characters get fully fleshed out. It's safe to say that without supports, a lot of the playable characters in this game (everyone except the lords and Hubert, really) would fall off a cliff for character worth. Anyway, my favourites, in roughly descending order, are Edelgard, Dimitri, Dorothea, Hubert, and Claude. Followed by Sylvain, Felix, Petra, Ferdinand, Lysithea, and Hilda (not in any particular order). Quick one-sentence rundowns of why I like 'em, though I could go into considerably more detail if I had time, especially for those near the top of the list: Apparently I'm one of the few people here who thinks all three lords are just completely great, I was blown away by all of them. Claude is the "safest" and he's still a magnificent, manipulative bastard (but so darn likable anyway!) who imposes his will on the world; Dimitri has one of the best character arcs in the series and is just so deep and such a good portrayal of PTSD/depression mixed with the violent culture of Faerghus, and Edelgard lies at the centre of the game's thesis asking when revolution is justified, and inspires endless discussion for a reason. More eloquent people than me have already written many words on why these characters are so great. Dorothea is my favourite of the "normals", her support game is wonderful, she's a fully-formed character who has different yet internally consistent interactions with just about every person she meets and sheds much light on the Adrestian setting, and Hubert oozes a certain sort of charisma which I can't take my eyes off of, especially in the post-timeskip Crimson Flower cutscenes. Ferdinand is that one character I assumed would be an annoying rival and many of his C supports point that way but somehow he ends up as just the sweetest man in existence and a breath of fresh air (him + Hubert is particularly great), Lysithea and Hilda are fun, bitchy women after my own heart, Sylvain and Felix are both messed up by Faerghus culture in different ways and I find both compelling (Sylvain is kinda detestable but he's such a convincing character anyway, and the moments where he drops the mask are great), and Petra is just plain admirable while having enough interesting traits (her warlike nature) to avoid feeling like a tired trope.

Order changes based on my mood, of course; especially for the all-time list most of the games are very close together. This decade: 1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses 2. Fire Emblem Fates 3. Kid Icarus: Uprising 4. Super Mario 3D World 5. Undertale 6. Hyrule Warriors 7. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle 8. Nier: Automata 9. Tales of Berseria 10. Mario Kart 8 I didn't realize how much this decade had shifted over to me being a Nintendo fan. All time: 1. Final Fantasy Tactics 2. Super Mario Kart 3. Fire Emblem: Three Houses 4. Final Fantasy X 5. Fire Emblem Fates 6. Super Mario Bros. 2 7. Mega Man 3 8. Metroid Fusion 9. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn 10. Kid Icarus: Uprising So many honourable mentions... in addition to the ones from the previous list which I won't repeat here, there's Super Metroid, Mega Man X8 (also MM2, MM9), various Ace Attorney games (Justice for All probably ranks highest), Order of Ecclesia, Super Mario Bros. 3, Devil May Cry, F-Zero X, Wild Arms 4, Suikoden 3, Final Fantasy 6 (also 13 and 5), Valkyrie Profile, and Chrono Trigger. I used to have so many Final Fantasy games on this list, but Fire Emblem has definitely replaced it as my pet series. And it's pretty obvious that RPGs (including SRPGs) and platformers are my favourite genres, for all that there's a few other things mixed in there.

So your counterargument now is "it's a combat art"? When pretty much everyone who has actually played Maddening can tell you Combat Arts are really useful in that mode, certainly including Relic Combat Arts? Even if you literally never repair Aymr, its five uses of Raging Storm are a big deal. And since Chapter 16 throws some Agarthium at you unless you're warpskipping, that five uses is better thought of as "five uses for the first four maps, then five more for each of the last two". When every use is essentially a free action, even a small number can be decisive.

As far as Three Houses goes, out of characters who appear properly in the story (i.e. excluding Sothis), Rhea is #1. Ancient dragon, takes on multiple demonic beasts at once, facetanks the javelins of light, etc., etc. You could make a case that Nemesis, Edelgard, and Byleth are the next three in some order. Rhea defeats one of them 1v1 and it very clearly takes the power of the other two combined to defeat her. In general she only loses when clearly outnumbered AND facing at least one high-end opponent.

It's very obviously rushed/poorly thought out yeah, and you're certainly not the only one who thinks so given that it's easily the least popular route. To this day I'm not sure exactly what the route is trying to accomplish; Azure Moon and Verdant Winds both tell the story it tells much better while giving you front-seat looks at Dimitri and Claude, both fascinating characters. SS could have taken the opportunity to show more of Rhea or Edelgard but it really doesn't (Rhea's about equally present on VW, while Edelgard is actually more present on AM). SS is also very unconcerned with improving the terrible conditions in Fodlan which White Clouds sheds light on, which gives me some malice for it. I think they writers wanted there to be a choice as to whether to support Edelgard or not, and that's fair I suppose, but it's clear they didn't really care about what happened if you went down the SS path beyond some early plot skeleton ideas that got turned into a couple videos.) For evidence of it being rushed, well, it depends on exactly what order different parts of each route were constructed... but consider that SS has only one unique map (and evidence for it copying VW's maps rather than vice versa is found in the fact that the Black Eagles appear as bosses on those maps), a duplicate final boss from another route (and said boss unquestionably makes more narrative sense on the non-SS route), and something like 90% of its monastery dialogue is shared with VW/AM, including that of the Black Eagles students, which shows how they're afterthoughts even on a route they're required recruits. (Side note: I think it's pretty laughable to say that CF is as rushed or as much an afterthought: all unique maps, mostly unique monastery dialogue, a bunch of supports (Edelgard, Hubert, and now Jeritza) only available on that route. It's definitely the route with the second most effort put into it, besides whichever of AM/VW/SS you think was created first [presumably AM].)

@Moltz23 I think it's rushed in the sense that the chapter really should have played out differently, but they did a minimal-effort copy from the other routes, deleting the scene you mentioned and just using exactly the same map as on BL/GD despite the fact that this makes very little sense. Adding the scene you mentioned back in wouldn't have fixed the problems.

If by "early on" you mean Chapter 1 I kinda agree, but honestly that's about it: after that one fight where the mage is expected to shoulder 20% of the action I rarely found it a big problem even on Maddening, just meant that for once I didn''t waste Heal on curing 1-2 HP chip and levelup damage like normal. Otherwise I found mages quite useful early, because being able to do damage from range 2+ without being countered is great, and early physical options for this are lacking (bows struggle to deal nearly as much damage both because enemy res is lower than def AND because every PC mage starts with double-digit magic while most physical units start with 8-9 str, so Tempest Lance/Smash are needed to compete and those are range 1), and they aren't yet falling behind on move.

I'm honestly not sure having it be on-screen would have changed anything. Hilda's description did more for me than another one of the game's low-quality anime cutscenes could have, I think. I feel like Dimitri's role on VW would feel a bit anticlimactic and unceremonious if that was your first route, but as someone who experienced Azure Moon first, it really resonated with me. Again, it's the bad end that AM hinted was just around the corner, come to life.

I voted for: Medeus - Probably eventually, even if I find him immensely boring. Original villain and all. Mila - Well, we already have Duma. She loses points for no gameplay form, but gains them for having a more marketable appearance. Athos - Actually appearing on-screen and being a memorable and powerful ally helps his case. Ashera - Fairly obvious choice I think, she's a rare intersection of in-your-face powerful lore-wise and also prominent in gameplay. Lehran - Well we've already got Altina... Deghinsea - As above. Soan's definitely the least likely of the old Tellius heroes (even less prominent than Altina), I think, but I wouldn't rule him out. Seiros and Nemesis - Because 3H is gonna get representation. Thorr - OG character, new blood. Least likely person on this list is Jahn I think, we already have Idunn as a regular hero, elevating Jahn above her would feel... weird.

I think this is very well said. I have some issues with how Black Eagles handles Chapter 11 (to me it feels like it's obviously a rush-job copy from the other routes especially Blue Lions where it makes more sense), but I think the choice itself as a moment of emotion based on Byleth's (and the players) feelings about Edelgard as a person (perhaps Rhea as well) is powerful and effective. There is a reason that it is accompanied by a heartbeat. @Sid Starkiller, I really liked your proposal for how Chapter 11 would go, though (for all that I do think I'd rather keep the more emotional aspect to it and have the decision come after some revelation Edelgard didn't control rather than her making a direct rational plea at a time of her choosing).

To be honest, I really like Dimitri's end in Golden Deer. Seeing it makes the struggle to bring him back to the light in Azure Moon feel even more weighty: we see the consequence of what happens if he continues the way he's going and it's ugly, both in his own death and the pointless deaths of all his friends. It's one of my favourite scenes on the route (along with various times Claude is a magificent bastard).

In addition to this, Marianne has Thoron. Extra range is huge; hard to argue that Lorenz's Reason list is better than hers as a result, even though it's literally her only standout spell. If the choice is between the two of them, Marianne offers both Physic and Thoron, so the choice is obvious. Lorenz has similar problems compared to many other mages, who almost invariably provide more utility than him, leaving him as a pick purely for power, and Lysithea crowds him out at that role.

Not sure about numeric scores, but I definitely think Seteth is being overrated here; he explicitly can't transform into a dragon any more so I don't think he deserves credit for whatever he did in the backstory, and I don't see any reason to believe he's anything more than a highly skilled crest-wielding warrior, which pales compared to the plot accomplishments of Dimitri and Edelgard at least. Claude's hard to rate, you said "strong' which makes me not want to give Claude credit for his shrewdness, but he could potentially rise a fair bit depending on how you feel about that of course.

You have to defeat him before getting in his range (e.g. with Meteor, I assume Stride-strats work too) so that he doesn't use his "last resort" strategy. Not sure if there are any other requirements, e.g. if the order you defeat him and Dimitri in makes a difference.

Eh, I'd say it deserves to have a lot of representation next year. (a) It looks likely to be the most popular/successful FE ever (hopefully I'm not being contentious in saying that more popular FEs deserve at least a bit more representation than less popular ones, that's simple business sense). (b) It needs to "catch up" to other games. Put it this way, the game could get 30 units in FEH next year, and it would still have fewer units than Mystery, Blazing Blade, Tellius (if combined), Awakening, or Fates. Obviously mixing in other games is good, but it would feel perfectly reasonable to me if FE3H had like, one banner out of every three, for the next while.

I would strongly oppose considering RNG abuse in tier list discussions, which is exactly what rerolling growths are. Growths are a major part of character worth and RNG abuse can largely remove them as factors. Same with things like rigging crits. Fine for a speedrun, but not really the sort of gameplay I'm personally interested in discussing.

Oh yes, this so much. That may be one of the best-delivered lines in the game. (CF spoilers below) This sequence also really got to me. Have you seen the version of the scene where Dedue survives? I really liked that one too. (I also liked how your actions in the battle could affect things there, even if sadly there's no way to save Dimitri.)

You can get a fair bit of money even with just one tournament per month - you have your monthly income during White Clouds, get periodic bullions (especially from some paralogues), plenty of dropped weapons, trashy things you can sell (less than in many previous FEs, but there are still some questionable stat boosters and weaponry you don't need). I feel like unless you spam gifts as your motivation restoration method, gold shouldn't be a major problem.

(spoilers for this post, especially AM) I killed Felix with Sylvain after their boss conversation referenced their support which I'd seen from BL. That felt real bad. "Remember how we promised we'd die together?" Not a death scene per se, but another scene that gets to me is the flashback to child Dimitri and Edelgard in the late stages of Azure Moon. Seeing those two kids being happy together and knowing that no matter what route you will take, that it's impossible for it to end in anything but tragedy, tugs at the heartstrings for sure.

Yeah I'm very surprised as well. The biggest reason I can think of is that they probably figure most of the "new" Fire Emblem fans are just plain playing Three Houses at the moment, so they're using this time frame to keep the "old" fans engaged by filling out the roster with secondary characters from older games like Binding Blade and Sacred Stones. Stereotyping a bit here but I wouldn't be surprised if it's how they think.

Speed does have the added significance of affecting avoid. It's a pretty big deal in, say, the GBA FEs; either you're overcoming various doubling thresholds (at lower speeds, since GBA enemies are pretty slow) or you're piling on avoid points, and avoid has the exact same issue as defence: the more you have, the better it becomes, until you're invincible. It's a bit less potent in this game since it's only 1 point of evade per speed, of course, but still not neglibie. (It says everything about how impotent Dex is as a stat that Spd essentially has a parallel role which is so secondary you can overlook it like this.) This is only a minor nitpick, I liked your summary otherwise. Defence is an odd stat to balance. I definitely think it ends up less important than strength and speed in most FEs (certainly including this one), but the way it snowballs means that the game designers have to keep ways of stacking it in mind, and this is especially true in more recent games where there are more ways to do just that (batallions, shields, food, etc.).

Good post! I agree in particular that Claude often gets a bit of a pass by players (and to be fair, the writers let him get this pass) - he's not some goody-two-shoes nice person and there's a very high chance his plans would have involved armed conflict at some point. Since the conflict starts without him, he adjusts his plans to take advantage of the conflict. I also think that Fodlan was a powder-keg in general. You can't look at the situation in Faerghus as anything remotely sustainable: recent years have seen multiple uprisings and a genocide, and the nation appears to be outright plagued by banditry and disorder. The best-case scenario was Faerghus imploding in a bloody civil war, the worst-case is that the Knights of Seiros and the other nations get dragged in too. One thing I really enjoyed about 3H is that, in many other FEs, the situation is often painted as idyllic, while in 3H, we see a society that made me stop and think "No, this is wrong". Which set the stage nicely for the three lords and their different visions of how to make things right.

This is an extremely bad take and borders on outright insulting since a lot of people (including me) don't have CF as our first route and still don't consider Edelgard the villain. If the writers weren't trying to justify CF, they wouldn't have made Rhea such a terrible person (torching her own city, something "villain" Edelgard never does across despite being in a similar situation in three routes) and given CF such a positive ending. She's allied with them because her goal is to remove the social constructions which she blames, rightly or wrongly, for the suffering she experienced. You'll notice she rarely talks about "my uncle / Duke Aegir must pay for what they did", rather seeing it as a symptom of Fodlan's obsession with crests. I have no trouble believing that someone might act that way, trying to get at the root of the problems instead of going for simple-minded revenge. Also, not that I'm happy with the Agarthians in any route at all, but I actually thought this route addressed them the most directly, since Hubert seems to be about the only person in the world who realizes how they need to be fought: in a war of espionage, to slowly remove their influence from society. I find that much more satisfying than VW/SS "just go to their house and punch them in the face" (which, as evidenced by the Claude/Byleth ending at least, doesn't actually work anyway).